


Make Your Words A Weapon

by HelloAmHere



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Fame, Feelings Are Difficult, Frustration, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Music, body anxiety, mild social anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-30 23:52:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 36,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13962786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloAmHere/pseuds/HelloAmHere
Summary: There’s no single path forward from the connection, no truth other than the truth that the person whose words you carry is out there, an undefined something that you’re going to have to deal with.In whatever way you can possibly deal with meeting the stranger who's always been there, and always been missing.OR: Louis is a music critic, Harry is a rockstar, soulmates are destiny but no one ever said destiny was easy, music is everything.





	1. A-SIDE

**Author's Note:**

> [Fic post for this story!](https://helloamhere.tumblr.com/post/171920767418/make-your-words-a-weapon-by-helloamhere-36k)
> 
>  
> 
> So! So. I saw [this post](https://helloamhere.tumblr.com/post/171385603793/nottooldforthisship-okay-so-classic-prompt), and I thought a bunch of ridiculous thoughts about fate and music and why a critic would even be famous and how that's actually a pretty long phrase to have on your skin, so, thank you for the inspiration. 
> 
> This story has a theme around body anxiety of a sort that is difficult to tag. Please tread lightly if that bothers you. fwiw, I experience this myself and tried to handle with care, I think I’m just being cautious noting it. The characters are healthy. It’s not about weight or food or dysmorphia. 
> 
> For the purposes of this au, we’re at older than early twenties and taking a lot of liberties with actual album releases. On that note I am but a fiction. This isn't how music or criticism works but hey, it's also not how soulmates work. This is fiction including any and all critical opinions of any music so don’t @me, all taste is subjective :D

****_“That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul....It is the only civilized form of autobiography.”_

_(Wilde, The Critic as Artist)_

_“Strauss and I tunnel from opposite sides of the mountain. One day we shall meet.”_

_(Mahler, on Strauss)_  

 

Louis’ life is being ruined by Niall Fucking Horan, and it isn’t even over something good this time. It’s only just a painful indie band in a dodgy bar that Niall has insisted, _insisted_ on going to, instead of coming with Louis to this bloody arena show. 

Louis shouldn't be here either, so it's cruelty Niall's making him do it alone. Louis has lately been targeting small acts, up and comers, and he’s been interested in the slipstream experimental stuff, half-viral and half-in-basements. People are ever inventive in the ways they make a music industry, and then tire of that industry, and then try to make a new one.

_good evening london I have some songs to share with you tonight_

Nothing in the arena shows feels new anymore. And not just because he knows how they all begin.

“You’re an ass,” Louis says, to Niall Fucking Horan. He’s got the phone pressed up tight to his ear because teenage girls—god bless them—are loud.

Louis likes that, actually, likes the girls and their sincerity, feels a kind of kinship given the octaves of his own screaming voice. Not that he ever screams, not at music.

_good evening london_

“Pah,” Niall says, peaceably, “I didn’t want to listen to you whinge for an hour. The lead singer of _my_ band is really hot, tonight,”

“You’ve got terrible taste,” Louis says. It’s untrue because Liam Payne is definitely hot, but then again so is Harry Styles, and Louis doesn’t expect to enjoy this show any more for that. Hard to get in the moment in work, anyway.

_I have some songs to share_

“At least yours will talk to you,” Niall says.

“Thanks for that,” Louis says. He hangs up, but not before waving the phone close over the heads of the girls in front of him, who are already screaming. Light cues haven’t even gone yet, but Louis can admire their stamina. They’ve all got flowers in their hair. Louis should’ve thought of that.

_with you_

Not every big music act in London begins the same way. But they nearly all do, since Louis got famous, since bands wanted to impress Louis because he got famous, since Louis got famous and bands wanted to impress him and then Niall Fucking Horan accidentally sort of maybe on purpose took a picture of Louis, sprawled out in his backyard in shorts, the terrible jagged loud huge script of it in black across his shoulders, curling around the bend of his ribcage, intimate and screamingly public at the same time.

_tonight_

Louis had kept it secret for a _reason._ And then he went viral, London’s rising music critic who’d been making a name for himself all on his own, thanks, now infamous for the damn tattoo.

They’d dug up his fucking MFA thesis, secret soulmate themes in music during the early twentieth century puritanical American Prohibition. They’d had a field day with that one, the wits of the internet.

_good evening london I have some songs to share with you tonight_

Louis thought it said something about the mysterious workings of artistic talent and its decoupling from general intellectual prowess, the way that so many musicians mangled his mark when there was an actual picture of it for reference. It had become something of a meme for every act to start with the call. 

 _Good evening! London!_ And inevitably they’d trail into something that wasn’t quite right. _We’ve got some—_ no, idiot, it was _I,_ hence Louis getting obsessed with single singer-songwriters when he was fifteen— _stuff for you—_ SO many of them said “stuff.” How hard was it to remember what their actual medium was called? _To share with london!_ Sometimes they’d trail off, embarrassed maybe, a dopey quirked grin in Louis’ direction that said, _sorry, had to. Write us up in the paper._

Musicians always thought they were so cheeky and cute and unique. Louis had thought so too. But becoming an expert in something meant, sometimes, murdering your love for it.

The light cues are going and the girls are excited and Louis settles back down in his seat, scanning the crowd as much as looking at the stage. There will probably be pyrotechnics, and a lot of flowers, if the crowd is anything to go by. Louis does love a good audience. _That,_ at least, is genuine.

 

***

 

His show starts with a fairly predictable drum build, some lights, a lot of shifting in the crowd, and there he is. 

Louis isn’t surprised by anything about him, more’s the pity. He prowls out stage right in a throwback suit with styled hair. The whole tour has pretty controlled optics, a little too controlled. But Louis isn’t here to focus on preso except inasmuch as it gave clues to what really mattered, Harry qua _music._  

There’s sashaying, and a joyful panic in the crowd. The only thing that surprises Louis is his own face, grinning because Styles is grinning and that’s more magnetic in person than in pictures. He’d never gotten it before.  

Harry Styles. Definitely distracting. He’s as pretty as they say, in real life, prettier; he’s got a solid jawline and a heavy gaze and it’s offset by the widest smile. Louis hadn’t thought he would notice, but he does. Tall and lean and so comfortable on stage. It makes Louis feel happy even if it’s artificial happiness, a splenda-sweet version of entertainment. Harry Styles has got a cheeky face that tricks you into thinking he’s smiling at _you._  

Harry Styles comes up to the mic like he’s astonished to find it there. He finally looks straight at them, gives the audience this puckish _you’re waiting for it_ thing, and Louis just knows _._ He's going to do it. 

“Fuck me,” Louis mutters, and he gets sympathetic eyes from the girls next to him.

“Good evening, London,” Harry says. Musicians usually screech the London Critic Mark, but Harry drawls. He’s a third of a stadium and hundreds of people away but he might as well be in Louis’ living room, knocking his boot toes together.

“I have some songs to share with you, tonight.” That voice is smoke and fire and electricity and Louis feels it like a disaster. Louis has forgotten how to breath. 

Louis’ body cordially reminds him that oxygen is not an elective. He comes back to the arena, out of the distant trap of Harry Styles’ eyes. That was...he has no category for what that was. His fingers and toes are tingling. It’s ice picks under his nailbeds, sparks up the inside of his elbow bends, pins in the soles of his feet. 

Louis bites the inside of his own cheek, carefully, to bring himself down. _No one’s even touching you, wanker,_ he says himself, to his nerve cells, which may or may not be an integral part of himself, depending on the day.

Styles has slammed off into one of the more powerful songs in the new album. His vocals are strong and he’s in his element with the audience, so there aren’t a lot of good reasons for how Louis is feeling right now. Louis feels removed, watching Harry like an act on a tv screen, and he’s inexplicably upset about it. It feels like Harry and everyone else are at a party when Louis didn't get an invitation. Harry up there singing has a strange thumping wrongness. Like what Louis really wants is to get out of this vast arena and have Harry Styles in his kitchen, rolling out these songs for just the two of them.

He just hates arena shows, that’s what it is, the construction and the overwhelming size. The analytical part of his brain does its business, storing away details. It’s a good show, really good, sleek and a little careless at the same time, representative of the way that Harry Styles wants the world to see him now: sweet and cool at the same time, fundamentally unbothered by the weight of his early fame and its heavy expectations. There are probably important thoughts Louis should be having about the songs.  

But. 

He shouldn’t be having a hard time with it, it’s happened so many times before. Yet Harry’s voice is  rolling in his head. Every time he talks in the breaks, Louis can see his mouth shaping around the words. _good evening london._ Louis has got a notebook in case he wants to jot stuff down but right now, he can’t even grip a pen, shivers in his fingers. That’s strange. 

It turns out someone getting the words on his back right is, in fact, worse than all the times they get them wrong. 

Harry Styles blows a kiss to the crowd. It's improbably in Louis’ direction.

 

***

 

Louis stands in a backstage hallway and mentally runs takes, which is always a useful exercise when he feels nervous and he doesn’t know why. There’s something gnawing the pit of his stomach, but it’s better without Harry’s face in view.

Harry Styles, Musician, exists only on the outskirts of Louis’ musicworld map. Harry Styles, Real Person, is unmapped entirely. Louis was embedded in multicultural classical revival at the time that Harry Styles and his whole band glomped popular consciousness like a disarming alien invasion. Louis wasn't watching _game_ shows. 

Harry was always good, of course, a bright core of charm in the middle of the band. He'd never been shy about his affection for the stuff he grew up on: pushing eclectric references even in their earliest cookie cutter pop, growling around on stage more and more each year, buying up vintage guitars and a posh art collection in his spare time. Can't buy taste, but they always try. 

Louis shakes his head. Portrait-of-an-artist angle has been covered, more than enough, for someone with Harry’s dimples. Enough about who Harry Styles is. Louis very much doesn’t care. 

It's an event review anyway. As Louis waits for security to clear his press pass and usher him backstage, he switches to the face-melting that went on around him in the crowd, rapturous and sweet and so, so emotional. It’s an impressive holdover from Harry’s boyband, and he wonders if it’s going to sustain for longer than people think it will. 

Popstars. Always a watertight act. Louis likes picking at the seams in those.

***

 

Louis is going to kill Niall for not being here with him, because Harry Styles is unbelievable looking in real, real-life off the stage itself, and Louis doesn’t even like to talk to the musicians he _isn’t_ attracted to, if they say the words. 

The plan was to get a quick soundbite from Zayn, lead guitar. But because this is the most annoying night in Louis’ living memory it’s Harry Styles himself slinking in and giving Louis a once-over that makes his toes curl. 

“Sick show,” Louis says, reduced to inanities. He smooths down the stomach of his shirt, the soft grey one with the blue stripes, already hanging reassuringly long over his hips. 

Harry Styles’ entire face changes. He looks bothered, maybe even angry, long brows snapping together in a frown. Louis notices a tendriling line from a tattoo up the side of his chest, where he’s started to unbutton the white collared shirt he played in. 

“Love?” It slips out of him, unintentionally, into the disconcerting silence of Harry’s frown. Louis usually tries to sound more London, discard the frequent endearments if he can't lose the less than posh accent, but it betrays him in front of hot boys. 

“Fuck,” Harry Styles says in his molasses voice. He’s staggered back into Zayn Malik, lead guitar, who braces Harry with a weary gesture that indicates this isn’t an unusual occurrence. 

“Watch it, Hazz, Jesus,” Zayn says, pushing both of them fully into the room. 

“Heya, hey, everything all right there?” Louis asks. He starts to reach out but then he catches sight of his own hand and he drops it, colouring. Harry Styles is probably tired from the show, maybe he didn’t expect to be ready for a soundbite with a critic, Louis doesn’t have any idea.

Louis is therefore utterly unprepared for what happens, which is that Harry Styles, Maniac, _lunges_ for him. He catches Louis by his upper arms. It’s not exactly fierce but he’s right there, right up in Louis’ space, inches away from his face.

“Oh my god,” Louis says, in a shriek that nobody could even charitably describe as manly. He shoves Harry backwards and into Zayn. Harry falls again, clearly not one for balance.

“What the fuck,” Zayn yelps, understandably, “Do you know this guy, Hazz?” 

“No,” Louis snarls at the same time as Harry says--

Harry says-- 

Harry says-- 

“ _You’re my soulmate.”_  

No, that’s not what happened. 

When Louis opens his eyes, Zayn has got an arm suddenly braced around Harry’s chest as if he’s worried that Harry Styles is an insane person about to make another leap at Louis. Zayn is also looking quite worriedly at Louis himself, who has backed about half the room away. 

“Do you think you’re funny?” Louis asks. 

“Hi, hullo, fuck,” says Harry Styles, Maniac, “You’re my soulmate. Oh my god, Louis Tomlinson, the London critic, that’s who you are. My soulmate.” 

If it’s an act, it’s a good act. Harry is acting fairly convincingly like someone who doesn’t expect every person they meet to recite their mark at them. Louis could give him tips. 

“Is he? What did you say?” Zayn asks. 

“I hadn't even planned on saying it, since everybody does, just decided last minute,” Harry says in a tone of marvel. 

“You’re wrong, absolutely wrong, sorry, everyone says those words,” Louis says. He feels wild. The world is rolling on its axis and he needs to find something to hold onto. 

“You're my soulmate,” Harry says, again, firmer in his red carpet voice. Louis wants to put his hand over his mouth. He feels raw. 

“Absolutely not, no, I refuse,” he says. He's not, he's not ready, he's, he doesn't know, everything is a little blurry, and _everybody says those words and it's never real._  

“It's not,” he starts. He's not _ready._  

Harry's eyes flash, and there's the man who captured a million hearts and eyeballs even as a teenager, and he's far from that now, he's something deep and unsettling. 

“Didn't I say them? I know I did. Everybody knows your mark. But you said mine,” Harry says. Zayn’s still got his arm around Harry’s shoulders and he tenses, at that. 

“Those words aren't even to me, they're to the whole fucking audience. They're not even _about_ me,” Louis hisses. 

It isn't fair. They've already taken it from him, his mark. He isn't going to stand here and let it keep dictating his life. He feels sick, pulsing in his ears, the distant echo of an arena full of screams. 

 _to share with you_  

“Louis Tomlinson,” Harry keeps saying his name with relentless eyes and Louis hates it. He hates the burning focus of this attention. He's dizzy, and his mouth is dry, and Harry Styles said all the right words in the right order but it's not true, because it's a joke.

“Um, so, maybe we could all sit down?” Zayn says. 

Harry ignored him, pulls forward out of Zayn’s grip and Louis steps back, rapidly. His face twists, hands shaking. Harry's eyes follow the motion, uncertainty rolling over his face. 

“Get him under control, I've already got my review made up, you can't influence that,” Louis says to Zayn. He's got to protect one thing in his life from contamination. He's got a seeping panic in his chest and he's locked in tight to the parts of himself that feel solid. 

“What? I don't care about that. Please, don't go, stay, talk to me,” Harry says. 

Maybe he's just a shocked stranger with the buzzing of his mark in his ears. Or, or, or he's a really good actor. If Louis stands here much longer, he might throw up, and he's not going to do that. He's not going to do any of it. 

“Just talk to me, you finally came,” Harry says. 

Something awkward and young and unkempt is leaking through the gorgeous rocker veneer. On a normal day Harry Styles, Real Person might be nervous. Louis lets that observation flit away because it doesn't matter. He can't he can't he can't. 

“Get away from me, leave me alone,” Louis says. There’s a door on the other side of this room that he came in by, and he’s already halfway out.

 

***

 

On a simple level sound is just a vibration that hits you. This has been used to clever advantage in directed sonic canons and orchestra halls and toothbrushes. 

Sticks and stones can break your bones and words can definitely hurt you, if they’re loud enough.

 

***

 

“Niall,” Louis calls. There’s no response, even though he can see the top of Niall’s head, poking up over the arm of the sofa. 

Louis tilts his head to the side. It’s possible that Niall is asleep. He aims a paper ball. 

“Don’t hit me with your failed outlines,” Niall says. Louis puts the paper ball down. 

“I dunno why you write things on paper, anyway,” Niall says. 

Louis picks the paper ball back up and throws it. He’s got great aim, refined over the years of their work and friendship, and it hits Niall right on his exposed head. 

“It helps me think. Niall, if I’m making a point about half-assed neo-progressive rock can I also call it a ‘progressively worse performance’? Too much?” 

Niall snorts. “Possibly too much, but it depends on context. Give me the frame?” 

Louis considers the papers spread out before him. He likes to get the shape of the piece before he writes it, and he’s got more paper balls around him than usual, this time. 

He’s not rattled. He’s in his best chair, perched next to the open door to his Review Writing Balcony, and Niall’s on the sofa. Niall Fucking Horan has, of course, already finished his entire review. Life goes along as normal. He's not flashing back to Harry's molasses voice, dripping _his words_ into the mic.

Whatever. The only words that matter right now are the words that will make a chiseled form of his currently amorphous reaction to Harry Styles’ debut solo album. 

“Um, under 2k, although I could squeeze another hundred for something rapturous but this is not that. Solo breakout album, gonna weave in something meditative about how early cookie-cutter pop success doesn’t carry you far enough to think you can model yourself on the likes of Bowie and fucking, I dunno, eighties hair metal or whatever he thinks he’s referencing. Commentary on the transition, the Beatles, obviously. A poetic line at the end about how the pop fantasy always breaks, we all must put aside fairy tales, no Peter Pan, something.” 

He's already got that bit, scribbled out in his notebook. He got it in the ride back from the show. His handwriting looks shaky and he frowns at it.

“Oh,” Niall says, “Oh, Styles. I thought the album had a lot of promise, actually.” 

Louis lifts his shoulders into a shrug at the world, which has cursed him with a tasteless best friend. 

“ _Promise_ ,” he scoffs. “You don’t get to play it safe in every corner of your brand, and bake people cakes, and make your excellent PR team call you the next Mick Jagger, and think that's all it takes to waltz into owning some new wave of britpop. There's a history, Niall. There's a bar to clear. I'm trying to protect rock and roll.” 

“You sound really pissy. So he was hot, then,” Niall says. Louis doesn’t see how this is relevant at all. 

“Can I use a reference to bubblegum pop and marry it to the weirdly aggressive way that he chews gum? Will anybody get that?” Louis asks. 

“Have you been watching videos of Harry Styles chewing gum?” Niall asks. He sounds concerned. “So I take it he was _really_ hot.” 

“I am attempting to sanctify a bit of culture in the cathartic flames of purifying criticism,” Louis says. 

“That's redundant, _cathartic_ and _purifying,”_ Niall says. “You only get sloppy when you're actually upset. What's going on, boo?” 

“You know what, just shut up about Harry Styles. His music has no heart at all,” Louis says.

The paper ball sails through the air unerringly. It whaps his shoulder, despite Niall's never having looked up from the sofa.

 

***

 

The review pushes to digital in just two days, print to come the weekend. It's not brutal. It's cool and considered and, Louis fancies, a calibrated kind of disinterested. Harry Styles wants to be new royalty without _earning_ it. 

It gets buzz in the first hour, more than usual because it's discordant with lockstep reviews that've thus far fawned at the feet of Harry Styles’ big, dumb, sparkly boots. Then more than usual because Nick Grimshaw knows Louis vaguely from the culture scene and knows Harry even better and thinks it’s hilarious. Then more than usual because Harry Styles has a legion of social media-savvy fans. Truly legion. Louis did not ask for this. 

Louis hopes he's directed some people to some specific underappreciated Joe Walsh, and he exposed a lot of people to petty but nicely-phrased digs at soft rock, so that's a win. 

At one in the morning Harry Styles tweets at him. It’s a single word, and that word is _bananas._  

“Idiot,” Louis says, when it dings across his phone, and then he has to turn off his notifications, because they go wild.

 

***

 

People find a way to talk about soulmarks with everything, and music is no exception. People have always found a way to talk about music, too. 

One of the oldest pieces of music, and music commentary, is a cuneiform tablet from the Sumerian city of Ur. Louis saw it once, under thick glass and dim lights in the museum. It calls out the same essential intervals that are universally familiar now: octaves, fifths, fourths, and the major third. And along with everything else, along with the pleasing waveforms and the oscillations that underlie everything from piano recitals to mosh pits to eighth grade musical theatre, each one of these is supposed to make a symbology for soulmates. 

Of course no one ever agrees which means what. It’s the major third, maybe, that represents two souls. Or it’s the perfect fifth, that clean three-to-two ratio. Or the octave, for obvious reasons.   

Louis’ favorite interval is the perfect fifth but that doesn't have anything to do with soulmates. It makes the hairs on his forearms stand up, is all, and there's no historical or mathematical or even musical explanation for why that one and not any of the others.

***

 

Harry Styles has sent him a bouquet. Of bananas. 

“What the actual fuck,” Louis says. Then he takes a picture and sends it to Niall. 

 _We have to talk please,_ written on the peel of the topmost banana. There's also a heart, which Louis scratches away with his thumbnail. It's a satisfying scrape, squishing the yellow peel into a brown-mush slippery hole. 

The handwriting looks familiar. Louis throws the whole banana in the trash. 

Underneath the bananas are options. Three tickets to each of the Harry Styles tour next three shows, a phone number, and most disturbingly of all, a hotel address and Harry's hotel fake name, which is a level of amiable trust in a stranger that makes Louis physically sit down and close his eyes. 

 _I am dying,_ he texts Niall. _Styles homicide if anyone asks. Send him to jail no guitars allowed. Silent jail. Gags._  

 _My god do not share your kinks with me. Are you seriously still on about that album? Let a popstar write a couple ballads, no one ever died from riffing on Oasis,_ Niall texts back. 

 _Not in his melodramatic fantasies, where obscenely lucky celebrities who’ve never had anything go wrong ever are still world-weary enough to write six-minute epics. Harry Styles is cancelled,_ Louis texts. 

He thinks about tweeting it, and thinks better. He’s capable of distinguishing between public-face commentary and the too-raw criticism that bubbles up from his bones like ore, mined only at the cost of his own flesh. He puts on Mahler, so loud that the entire sports section comes in to yell at him. Like _they_ can talk.

 

***

 

“I'm not going to his next show,” Louis says, apropos of nothing. 

“Right,” Niall says. 

“I need you to go to Harry Styles’ next show,” his editor says, poking her well-coiffed head into the office, where they've been engaged in a heated argument over Louis’ fifth use of _guttural_ in a review this year. They’ve got a whiteboard with repeat offenders, and Louis is losing. 

“Fate,” Niall suggests when she leaves. Louis does not dignify this with a response, as it's cliche.

 

***

 

Louis goes to the show in all black. He wears a blazer because he's press, isn't he, artistic press, too much for this venue. And black jeans, not his date jeans, but his seeing-the-ex jeans. They’re comfortable, so fuck him. Or don’t, actually, that’s the point. He thinks about wearing sunglasses, but he's not the celebrity. He scowls at flower crowns. 

Harry steps up to the mic. He’s insouciant and terrible and he’s smiling. Louis has his hands in a judgmental steeple in front of his face and it’s definitely not because he’s worried that Harry has stupid super possible soulmate powers and will be able to see him through the lights and the gigantic venue and approximately eleven million fans. 

Harry Styles, Pretend Real Person, looks handsome. Twenty people backstage probably had to create that look. What a fucking liar. 

“Good evening,” Harry says, low, unhurried, and there’s a shiver up Louis’ spine because, ok, because he’s been trained to jolt every time someone says that, that’s all. 

Harry’s smile gets bigger. It is quite a face, it is. 

“London,” he says, and the crowd makes a half-groan half-mutter, because this isn’t, in fact, London. 

“I have some songs to share with you tonight! And also, good evening Manchester. Forgive the confusion, I’m hoping to see a friend tonight, and I wanted to say hello. To him. Specifically. You all get the songs, I guess. But the good evening is for him, really.” 

There’s continued murmur. Harry transitions the weird opening with as much polish as you’d expect from someone who’s been world famous since pre-shaving. Louis peers through his fingers, which have migrated to cover his eyes. 

People are going to put two and two together, now. Some whip-smart fourteen year old is probably tweeting about this with a resurfaced photo of Louis’ mark, as Harry hip-checks right into his first song. There’s a fucking cowbell on this song. This maniac. 

Harry’s a force of nature on stage. Louis stands by every word of his review, but sometimes things can be absolutely and unequivocally disappointing, and still captivating.

 

***

 

“You came,” Harry says. It's like Louis is back from the war. Harry is only just barely holding himself from moving forward, Louis can tell. 

“I already wrote the review,” Louis says. “They just think it's worth a longer piece. It got traction. A profile on the tour, maybe.” 

Louis has his arms folded in a barricade and he’s wearing his thickest sweater underneath the blazer. He’s too warm, actually, even sweating, but Harry hasn't tried to grab him this time. Harry has a look like someone determinedly working with a skittish animal. Louis is standing on the furthest edge of the room where the band waits for handlers or security or whatever they wait for. 

“I am a professional,” Louis emphasizes. For the record. 

 _Harry_ is a clumsy giraffe, so Louis doesn't know where he gets off, looking at Louis like that. 

“What are you thinking?” Harry asks. Louis folds his arms even tighter over his chest. Zayn and the drummer are in the corner of the cramped room on a tiny stained couch, trying and failing to look invisible. Harry feels about ten feet tall, but he’s not, he’s only some inches taller than Louis is. Louis can’t stop looking at him, probably just to make sure Harry doesn’t move closer. 

“I've seen the show already, I think.” 

“Maybe you should see it again,” Harry says. “I mean what do you think about us? About this? About the fact that we're soulmates and we need to talk?” 

“Is he always like this?” Louis asks invisibility corner. 

“Worse, usually, you've got him quite freaked out,” Zayn says. “It's pretty great.” 

“Huh,” Louis says. It's gratifying. 

Harry, who has remained unfairly tall and unfairly handsome in the seconds that Louis wasn't looking at him, starts pulling up his shirt. There's a flash of his famous laurels. 

“Want to see the mark?” Harry says. 

“No! Shit! No!” Louis yells, palms up. Harry slowly lowers his hem, and they glare at each other. 

“Amazing, usually nothing stops Harry getting naked,” the drummer says. A woman named Mira, Louis thinks, with a pierced nose and the bracing confidence of a female percussionist. 

“If you touch me again I'll cut your hands off, no more overproduced hollow body electric for you,” Louis says. Harry hasn't threatened to move toward him but he knows Harry Styles is a touchy person, he's draped all over every one of his friends, in the tabloids. 

Harry arches an eyebrow at Louis, and Louis feels his cheeks flame, but he doesn't drop the glare. If this prickling terrible feeling is supposed to be some soulmate thing, Louis doesn't need it. 

“I like this one,” Zayn says. 

“I'm so glad you came to another show,” Harry says, even though he's still glaring. “Thank you for coming even though _you're_ freaked out, too.” 

“I'm completely great. Whatever. Glad to get to stop wondering about the marks and move on. My boss told me I had to,” Louis says. 

“Just let me talk to you, let me call you,” Harry says. 

Louis doesn't give him his phone number. He does tell Mira that her jazz training comes through, and recommends that indie band Niall raved on about. Harry watches him the whole time and it makes his stomach feel tight. He asks Louis to go out with them and Louis flees. 

Louis goes home and puts on chill house music and lies down on the carpet of his library and breathes in the smell of his books and scores. 

Harry Styles tweets a picture that night. He’s between Zayn and Mira with his arms around their shoulders, scrunched in with not a gap between them. _Best friends in the world._ They look so at ease, Zayn's head tilted away from the camera, Mira giving Harry the kind of squint-eyes smile you give in the middle of a laugh with someone you're quite fond of. They're blurry, somewhere on a bar street, rainbows in the background. It doesn't look staged at all.

 

***

 

People do not always marry their soulmates.

People do not always fall in love with their soulmates.

It's not always love.

It's often love.

 

What people do is orbit their soulmates, for good or bad. A binary star system, an unwitting duet, your melody their harmony for the rest of your lives. 

These are all true, as far as Louis can tell, as far as anyone knows. As far as his mum told him, over and over and over again, fast and insistent and worried, on the days he’d come back from school and put on music so loud it drowned out everything else. 

There’s no single path forward from the connection, no truth other than the truth that the person whose words you carry is out there, an undefined _something_ that you’re going to have to deal with. 

In whatever way you can possibly deal with meeting the stranger who's always been there, and always been missing.

 

***

 

“Hullo, London,” Harry says. 

“That’s not my name,” Louis says. 

“I can’t believe I know your name now,” Harry says, which is honestly such a cliche thing to say, it’s a line out of every rom-com where they meet their soulmate on a Ferris wheel or a chicken farm or a cruise ship or whatever. 

“If this is a script, you should do better,” Louis says. 

Harry just laughs. Louis hears clinking in the background, too low-pitched to be glasses, more industrial. So he’s not at a party or whatever the fuck rockstars do when they’re not swiveling their hips around on stage on a world tour. 

“I always just thought of you as _love,”_ Harry says, “But I’ve gathered you wouldn’t appreciate that.” 

Louis breathes a long, long sigh into the phone. He has no idea where Harry got his phone number from, and makes a mental note to stare accusingly at Niall for at least the first hour of the morning. 

“What are you up to?” Harry asks. 

Louis looks around his crowded, beloved library for something cool. He's mostly been watching cartoons on YouTube in his corgi print pajamas. 

“I'm trying to think about Gershwin. There's this choral explosion in _Porgy_ , you know? It's got an ostinato I'm struggling to find a word for. Maybe hard-driving. Like a honky-tonk. It’s the part where he crosscuts an orchestra and an out-of-tune barroom piano, throwing these two chords back and forth. I'm sure you're familiar.” 

He can probably get Harry to hang up first. He's got a lot of scores here and he’s prepared to analyze every single fucking one of them, line by line. 

“Aw, I was thinking about us, too,” Harry says. 

“How are you _worse_ over the phone?” Louis asks. 

“Uh huh. I thought talking could be easier without physically having to look at each other,” Harry says. 

“God, the classic rockstar ego, it's not glamorous in real life, you know?” 

Louis shuffles some papers together and tries to make it sound loud and important. They're really just terrible scrawled ideas for next week's free-topic column. _Public speech mark bans, not actually that bad?: a re-examination through the lens of American protest music,_ for instance. 

“I meant you. You're so fit I can't even think around you, it's not fair,” Harry says. 

“Please, shut up, don't patronize me, you don’t even know me,” Louis says. He sits down on the floor against the wall, seeking ground. 

“I’ve heard of you, though. I had a bit of a crush on you long before this, when I first saw the picture,” Harry says. 

“Don't talk about my fucking _mark,”_ Louis spits. Harry Styles might be the only person in the world who actually has the right to talk about Louis’ mark, but Louis isn’t going to admit that until he damn well has to. Harry can wait in line, behind everybody else. 

“No,” Harry says. His voice has softened into something even slower and more careful, like he can see Louis with his back up against the wall, trying to hold his body together, far less angry and far more confused than he wants to be. 

“Not your mark, you in those shorts, arms over your head, just the profile of your face like a tease. I thought, wow, that’s that devastating London critic everybody talks about? He's beautiful. And I looked you up and you really were.” 

“I don't, I can't,” Louis starts. His voice has a shake underneath it but he thinks Harry would have to know him really well to detect it, and Harry doesn’t. 

It’s just. Louis isn’t an idiot. Harry's one of the most attractive people he's ever seen and he can't deny it's _something_ to hear that. And this voice, it sends electricity through his bones, unlike anything he’s felt before. He’s seen Harry twice now, and each time it was like the whole world went to black and white, and Harry was the only thing left in colour. 

And none of that changes the fact that he feels like he’s drowning, like there's a weight on his back, alone in the flat that he very much likes to be alone in, talking to a stranger who shouldn’t sound like someone that Louis has been missing for a long time. 

Louis wants to scream. 

“Coming on too strong, I freaked you out,” Harry observes. He sighs. 

“I'm sorry. Zayn says I have a huge problem with that, being really blunt. Sometimes I text with the band about it. We think it's messed our inhibitions a little, getting famous at sixteen, you know? Nobody to ever push back on.” 

At least he's marginally self-aware. Louis lets the back of his head clunk into the wall. 

“I just want to figure this out,” Harry says. _What_ they have to figure out, neither one of them knows. 

“I have no idea what we're supposed to do, and the fanciest thing I ever did at sixteen was high school musical theatre,” Louis admits. Maybe it _is_ easier over the phone. 

“What show?” Harry asks. Louis laughs despite himself. 

“Um, the Music Man,” he says, “Best musical.” 

“A really good one,” Harry agrees. “I’ve never seen it live but I want to. Caught Hamilton finally, though. Genius.” 

Louis runs his tongue along his teeth as he nods, sucks lightly at his molars. It’s a weird soothing habit. 

“They ran In the Heights at King’s Cross, three years ago. I harbor a fondness for that one, I know it’s old news now,” he says. Like there’s any comparison between Louis, shaggy-haired in 2015, running from the tube through the rain to catch an earnest London cast in a long-off show in a cardboard New York set, and Harry _finally catching_ the kind of course-changing shows people like Harry got invited to, probably backstage palling around with fucking Lin and whoever.   

“I wish I’d been there. I've sent you more tickets, we’re driving distance of London for a while,” Harry says, because of course he has. He’s already sent Louis some kind of backstage pass. Louis should sell it. Soulmate tier, plus convenience fees, he could make a killing. 

“I'm giving them to Niall,” Louis says. 

“Follow your heart,” Harry says. That's two out of three strikes for the rom-com script, so Louis gives him a severe warning.

 

***

 

“Good evening, London,” Harry says, “I have some songs to share with you tonight!” 

The crowd has been waiting this time and they chant it with him. Louis feels it vibrating through him, so many voices, chanting and singing. It’s become something that they’re anticipating now, gifs and videos and a thousand grainy pictures of Harry Styles, spreading his arms wide, wheeling around the stage, _looking for him._  

 _with you tonight_  

It’s such a good show. Louis is in a huge hoodie in the arena seat, knees to his chest, bodies standing and chanting around him. People haven’t recognized him so far, just a small lost body in an endless crowd. 

He doesn’t feel anonymous, though. He knows Harry’s songs by now, but he still finds himself listening to every beat. It’s reinvention in his head, perseverating in loops, over and over. It's a funny living through of what musicians always have to do. Louis has written about it but he hasn't done it before, this fundamental paradox of repeating such personal material in public and convincing the crowd each time that you mean it. 

It doesn’t look hard, for Harry Styles. Maybe it comes naturally. Maybe it's practice.

 

***

 

 _hey,_ Niall texts him on the way home. _hey, styles keeps saying your mark at his shows? some joke? like two hundred weirdos are trying to add me on instagram?_  

Louis hasn’t been on social media for over a week. He probably should’ve told Niall, but then he would’ve had to deal with the fact that he’d told Niall. 

 _hey want to hear something funny,_ Louis texts back. 

 _not really,_ Niall texts, immediately, like he’s been holding his phone and waiting for Louis to respond. _I want to hear that you’re ok?_  

Louis is...going to run a hot bath, when he gets home, going to use the thick packet of mustard bath salts that his sister brought him back from Vancouver, going to put on the thickest sweatshirt that he has, even though it’s a pretty warm night. He feels better with the layers on his back. 

The first time the photo went viral he unplugged his router and took a shower every single time he felt like it. Even if he'd already done it that morning, even in the middle of the day.

 

 _i’m fine,_ he texts. Niall’s typing, but Louis drafts another text anyway. 

_the funny thing is i think he’s for real and i’m scared_

 

Louis looks at the draft in the message bar, and he thumbs it back, one letter at a time. 

_the funny thing is i was thinking we should do a feature on my blog that’s like, Strange Wagnerisms. like every time some dramatic tv show samples Tristan and Isolde i can point it out_

 

Niall’s typing dots vanish, and reappear. Louis looks out the train window. It’s raining.

 

_that’s literally just that one penny dreadful episode and you have to stop talking about it_

_you promise you’re ok?_

_you need me to send Harry Styles to silent jail?_

 

 _let’s play Prince a bunch tomorrow,_ Louis settles on.

 

 _bringing my velvet v-neck,_ Niall says. Niall’s good people. 

 

***

 _some songs_  

Once upon a time Louis was soft and small and romantic, a kid who put posters up in his bedroom and wondered which of those bands would say the mark to him. That kid thought the mark was beautiful, that the bigness of it would correspond to the bigness of the love waiting for him.

_with you_

Romance is for suckers, and by the time he grows up Louis suspects that all the bigness means is that his soulmate is an asshole. That would make sense, given that they’re a musician. Accordingly, Louis makes it his mission to become louder and brasher and fiercer than they could ever be. He may not be a musician but that doesn’t mean he can’t have just as much a voice.

_to share_

 

***

 

“Did your boss make you come back?” Harry snarks. He can't handle being ignored and Louis has been talking to Zayn and ignoring him, but Zayn and Mira both left in the middle of Louis waxing on about the panharmonicon and Harry’s come back into the room in post-show clothes, joggers and a thin t-shirt that’s nearly translucent. Louis feels set up. 

“Yes, because I’m writing a piece on your tour,” Louis says, in the patient voice that one must use to explain things to a child. 

“Yeah. Do you also feel like, jittery until you see me again?” Harry asks. “Because you don’t have to just keep coming to the shows. Let’s get breakfast. Lunch. Any meal. Midnight snack, tonight.” 

“Shut up,” Louis says quietly. He doesn’t get up from the couch, because he isn’t intimidated. Harry’s standing over him with his arms folded. His feet are bare, so he should be the one shifting back and forth uncomfortably, but he’s just standing there.   

Louis pulls his feet up on the couch and sits on them. 

“Are you ok?” Harry asks. “I know I don’t know you yet but--” 

“You need to stop saying the London thing, we all get it by now,” Louis says. He feels hot under the collar which he's going to interpret as anger. Harry looks particularly gorgeous tonight, like a real person, giving sweatpants hugging his thighs and the t-shirt doing nothing to hide his muscles. 

It's unfair to be tortured by a rockstar who looks like this. 

“They're my words. I feel like if I say it enough you might listen,” Harry says. “Do you want to see yours? Will that prove anything to you?” He sounds frustrated. He'd be even more frustrated if he got what he seems to think he wants, Louis imagines. 

“I really don't,” Louis says, crossing and uncrossing his arms, and pulling at his shirt. It’s fine, it’s all in place. “Also, anybody could look up your mark online, so really, it proves nothing. I assume your whole life is yacht parties, after all.” 

“You're not telling the whole truth,” Harry says. “Maybe you just don't want me to force you to admit what you already know. That it's real.” 

“You know what,” Louis says, “Play an arpeggiated minor chord on an amped hollow body in a hushed auditorium and I'd probably get tears in my eyes, and so would everybody else. You're a musician, for fuck's sake. We both know that feeling something doesn't make it _real.”_  

“Then how do you want me to make it real?” Harry snaps. 

He drops down into the other corner of the tiny couch. He moves with startling grace, considering that Louis has seen Harry generate the least dance-like moves he’s ever seen from a human being. He’s too far for Louis to kick him, but too close for Louis to move to another part of the couch, and Louis rather suspects that Harry’s daring him to make a choice.   

“I don't want anything from you,” Louis says. He's clasping his hands together, fingers tight around the knuckles to keep them from moving. Harry leans forward, and now he’s definitely too close. Louis has goaded him too far. He’s so stupidly hot, the shape of his shoulders in a loose shirt that shows skin and ink and collarbone. Harry's careless with his body. Harry might be careless with _your_ body. It's the opposite of what Louis wants but he burns. 

“I think you want something,” Harry whispers, now. “Tell me what it is.” 

Harry is a physical person who needs physical convincing? Fine. Louis can play this game. He leans forward, and Harry stops breathing, and Louis flicks Harry on the shoulder, _hard_. 

“God,” Harry spits.   

“I don’t think you know anything about me, I think you'll get on with your tour, and forget about me when you leave,” Louis hisses. 

Harry doesn't move away, Harry is a glutton for punishment and a menace, Harry moves _closer._  

“Are you afraid? Or do you just want me?” Harry breathes. Louis can nearly feel his breath, can imagine the catch of his jaw and the crush of their open mouths together, sudden and blazing hot and wet. 

In no universe that Louis knows, has it ever not been both. 

“I never wanted to find you, I never wanted a soulmate,” Louis says, looking away. 

Harry pushes off the couch in a fast, frustrated move, and he’s not as graceful this time. He wobbles. Louis remembers how to breath. There are sparks down his back and uninterpretable lights in Harry's eyes. 

“I can tell when you're not telling the truth, I'm your fucking soulmate,” Harry says.   

“Sorry I'm not the one you wanted,” Louis says, and he leaves Harry there in his confusion.

 

***

 

Louis goes to bed and he doesn’t sleep much. He has a thousand grainy videos of Harry saying his mark on the internet, in case he ever feels nostalgic for the soulmate future he’s never known how to think about. 

He tosses and turns for two hours, and then he gets up and saves one. Just in case. Maybe he'll wake up and they'll all be vanished, like Harry probably will be.

 

***

 

Harry does not, in fact, stop saying the words. Louis was certain that he would but by the time Harry has done it for three more shows, grinning into the mic like a heartthrob banshee demon, Louis is forced to admit that he’s underestimated Harry Styles, Potentially Real Soulmate. 

Again and again and again. The crowd adds flourishes. People bring banners. There are remixes on youtube. Harry Styles is on a mission and apparently the world is in his side. 

 _good evening london I have some songs to share with you tonight._  

Louis writes a lot of reviews about other people, and he tries to avoid comparing all of them to that same sound. It’s fucking his ear up, following this tour. His editor just waves him off, and Niall is reading over every not-Harry-Styles description he writes with an indulgent red pen, so he manages. 

People are still trying to talk to him and Niall and his sisters, but they locked their social media accounts the first time and they locked them this time and they all assure Louis it’s fine, it'll pass. Louis turns off every sound on his phone except the ringer. 

 _sick show love_  

Zayn asks Louis to come backstage and bring him chips which is insane and yet it makes Louis laugh so he does it. 

They sit in the backstage with Zayn and Mira and talk shop. Harry's there, but he's quiet, in a dark red hoodie and tired from five shows in a row. He falls asleep with his head in Mira's lap and without bothering Louis at all, one night. 

“He's shy, you know,” Mira says, interrupting Louis looking at Harry. Louis jerks his head up. Zayn's gone out for a smoke. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Louis says, but Mira’s shaking her head at him and he’s learned that Mira is a person who doesn’t like you to doubt her. She holds Harry’s head still on her knee between two strong hands. 

“He kind of overcompensates for it, but that’s just performance, I know you can see that,” Mira says. 

Louis shrugs. Louis has no idea what they’re doing and he _doesn't want a soulmate_ , but he can't seem to stop.

 

***

 

 _some songs to share with you tonight_  

If anyone asks, he hates the mark. But the truth is he can’t summon up real animosity. He hates the way that people look at it sideways, what the picture did. But _it;_ he only hates it like he hates the cowlick he gets on the back right of his head, the feeling of socks sliding around inside shoes, his height. Sure, he’d choose a better body on principle if they were handing them out but until they were, this one was still his.

Most people’s marks are small, a tiny _hi_ peppered behind an ear, _how are you_ between fingers. A mark as huge and distinctive as his is tremendously rare. 

It’s like someone you don't know taking your face in their hands and yelling MINE in a crowded room.

 

***

 

Louis logs back into Twitter, shudders, and goes to Niall's profile instead, where he makes a petty comment about Malibu-mansion country singers. Niall does a kind of meandering pop culture commentary that embraces everything indiscriminately. He’s a keen oracle for popularity, and Louis loves that, actually, but he also has a duty to the high culture desk he ostensibly mans. 

 _You're a skewed coastal elite because your time in the states was just New York,_ Niall replies, within a minute. 

 _I'm just saying you lose your credibility when you write a chorus that sounds like someone opened a random page in an atlas to Arkansas,_ Louis posts. 

Niall responds with a picture he'd taken of Louis with his head napping on the desk in their office, Miley Cyrus’ new album prominently featured on the monitor. 

 _Low blow stalking my mid-afternoon slump tracks, babe,_ Louis snipes back, _but look, that album is gold._  

Niall sends him the music video queue for Justin Timberlake’s reinvent and Louis plays _Say Something_ on repeat all afternoon, because he's a sucker for songs about being left alone and Niall knows it.

 

***

 

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Harry asks abruptly. 

They’re backstage after another great show ( _fine,_ Louis amends in his head, it’s fine, Harry’s act, although he does find himself starting to get a little fond of it, but that’s a familiarity effect, surely. And all the suits. Louis can appreciate a great body in a crazy coloured suit, and Harry can’t see him looking when he’s hidden in the crowd, anyway). But Harry’s being totally bizarre and now he’s come out with this, fiddling with the bandage on his wrist from a recent surgery, instead of looking at Louis. He’s frowning at the bandage. 

“What did we say about easing into these conversations?” Mira murmurs. 

“We definitely did say that,” Zayn says, looking at her and pointedly not at Harry. “We definitely spent a lot of time on this.” 

Harry ignores them. He folds his arms and Louis notices, not for the first time, how different Harry looks with the smile switched off. He looks more stiff than mad, but there’s a flex in his jaw, a tight masseter that Louis can’t interpret. 

“God, rockstar,” Louis said, “Who told you we could talk about my life?” 

He’s preparing to defend his lack of boyfriend in a way that does not reveal anything incriminating. But Harry drops his arms and looks shamefaced. 

“I mean of course. You can do whatever you want. Obviously. I just. I should probably meet him or something. Does he know?” Harry asks. 

“What?” Louis asks. “What? No, I don't have a boyfriend? Like you care.” 

Harry rakes a hand through his hair. He looks frazzled. 

“Obviously I don't,” he snaps, maybe it’s a sneer, maybe it’s the way Harry’s face looks when he doesn’t have what he wants, Louis doesn’t know. 

“So shut up,” Louis says, and he’s sure his face is red, but he’s also sure he doesn’t care. He’s _fine,_ anyway. It hurts, being reminded of the ways he's failed to feel safe in the parts of life that other people make look so easy, but it's not a new feeling. 

“Just because some of us aren't international heartthrobs doesn't mean nobody could ever want us. God. What's wrong with you?” 

“That's not, what?” Harry splutters. 

“I honestly can't,” Mira says. 

Zayn sighs. 

“Watch,” he says, to Harry. He slouches out of the couch, and over to Louis. 

Louis is an island of sanity in a sea of insane people, and he has no idea what Zayn is on about. Zayn’s making full eye contact, though, which is unusual enough that it contains Louis’ attention. Not enough to keep him from noticing Harry tapping his thighs, and then twitching at the buttons on his shirt, and finally lightly hitting the left side of his chest in an unconscious, habitual gesture. 

Zayn is really unbearably good looking. He’s got enormous expressive eyes under thick eyebrows, but just the kind of scruff and strong angles that balance out the lush softness of his features. He looks like a lead guitar robot, designed in a lab for maximum profit. 

“Hey, listen,” Zayn says to Louis, and his voice is pitched differently, lower and smoother. “I’ve really been enjoying these backstage chats.” 

“Uhh, yeah? Me too?” Louis says. Zayn leans close. He smells like cigarettes and band clothes, and it’s nicer than that combination should be. Louis leans politely away, because he doesn’t think Zayn likes people in his personal space.   

“Wanna get out of here, catch some local music, you and me?” 

“I mean ok,” Louis says, doubtfully, “We can leave Harry, who doesn't have the palate to appreciate it, but it would be totally weird to not take Mira, right?” 

Zayn slouches further, against the wall, an arm braced outward to the left of Louis’ head. Louis frowns at him. 

“Are you sure?” Zayn asks, and he drags out the last word. 

“What are you doing?” Louis scolds. “Fix your posture. Get back to the couch. Stop being bizarre, are you all high tonight?” 

Zayn drops his arm and straightens up, giving Louis a quick and fond-looking smile. 

“See? I told you. Can you stop being a dick?” Zayn says to Harry, throwing himself back on the couch. Louis looks from one to the other, at a loss. Harry looks obscurely satisfied. 

“Lou, I've fallen out of touch with recent jazz. I think you promised me the lowdown?” Mira asks, and thank god. Finally, something Louis understands. He rubs his hands together, and ignores Harry, which he’s excellent at, thanks very much. 

“Oh, where to start. Kamasi Washington, definitely. I'm going to need you to drop whatever you were going to do tonight and listen to Esperanza Spalding, too. In fact, is there an aux cable in this godforsaken place?”

 

***

 

“Do you like my songs better, yet?” Harry asks on the phone the next day. Louis is supposed to be working on a piece about the Post War Orchestra, but he takes the call anyway, shoving past Niall’s chair to get out the door. 

Louis does like the songs better. He can feel so many more threads underneath them. 

“I'm tortured,” he says. “I hear acoustic guitars in my sleep. Would it have killed you to do an actual anthem or a banger?” 

“You just can't admit everything you want is completely contradictory, you can't ask for bangers and also be the only person left in the universe who likes modern opera,” Harry says. Louis bites a fingernail instead of responding, because, if _that_ isn't the truest thing. 

“And, you blogged not once but twice about Adam Lambert,” Harry says. 

“Mark Swed at the LA Times reviewed Adam’s upper register all the way back in 2004, I'm on solid ground,” Louis sniffs. 

When Harry called Louis had hesitated for a hot, embarrassed second. But Harry isn't acting any different, like their swift moment of physical tension didn't happen. Well, obviously it hadn't. It probably didn't even register to Harry, who seems like the kind of person to make out with a thousand new people daily. 

Louis is not that kind of person, not that he feels like talking about it. Not that Harry ever has to know, how much he thinks about what the sudden shock of Harry's mouth on his would be like, invasive and _not enough_ at the same time. 

“Did you catch up on Queer Eye?” Harry asks, gravely. They'd had a two hour long conversation about tv shows once Louis found himself accidentally revealing how wide-ranging his tastes were, and most of it overlapped with Harry's. Harry loved everything surreal and magical and sci-fi. Louis made him watch The Shape of Water and Harry tweeted at six in the morning about it. 

 _I didn't say you had to watch it IMMEDIATELY after your show, idiot,_ Louis had texted. 

 _I did tho, and then I watched two of his others,_ Harry texted. _I identify._  

Louis can't interpret that. 

 _are we fish or eggs,_ Harry had tweeted. Louis was disturbed not only by what this revealed about Harry’s interiority but also by the fact that he’d immediately understood what Harry was talking about. 

They ramble on about tv for a few minutes, and Louis forgets to be annoying.  Once he remembers he makes the usual statement about how Harry can stop calling, and Harry ignores it. 

“You wrote, ‘all music is an acquired taste,’” Harry says on the phone. “I think that’s true about people. Maybe it’s true about soulmates. Nothing is given by default, you have to get to know people.” 

“I think I also said that all pop music was a populist fantasy, and that I was over it,” Louis says. He’s pretty sure Harry’s talking about a blogpost, not even a proper piece. He doesn’t want to know how deep Harry has gotten into his brain. The consideration that he spread his own brain out for anyone to get deep into is something he’s going to have to deal with later. 

“Yes, but it sounded like you were having a bad day,” Harry says, “I mean, you love pop music. You just don’t love, and I quote, ‘the removed plane from ordinary life’ that pop stars inhabit, and I think that’s probably more about being rich, isn’t it?” 

“Ok, fine, it was a bad day,” Louis admits.

Louis makes himself a cup of tea. He’s always making tea to deal with Harry’s voice on the phone, thick like honey. Based on this Louis can almost imagine the taste of his mouth both acutely and not nearly enough. 

“I'm having a party,” he hears himself say. “You could come. I guess. Maybe. I've met your friends, maybe you should meet a couple of mine.” 

He can't explain this strange peace offering except that maybe he needs to see Harry in the context of other people. People he knows and trusts. He'll get it out of his system probably, watching Harry's charade fall apart in front of Louis’ friends. 

“You won't even let me buy you a drink in a bar, and you're inviting me over to your home?” Harry asks. He sounds way too excited. 

“I like my flat. You'll hate it,” Louis says. He needs to get Harry against the background of his real life, out of the spotlight, to see all the serrated edges that make them wrong together. 

“You’re very full of many strong opinions,” Harry says. 

Louis flinches. Nobody can see it, alone in the break room. 

“I really love it,” Harry says. 

Louis opens his mouth, and closes it, and dabs a tea bag into his mug. 

“Hey, you know what, pop music is for suckers, modern audiences are a field of fools,” he says at last. 

“Ok,” Harry says, cheerfully. “You talked about 2001: A Space Odyssey as proof that modern audiences are sophisticated enough to find modern classical music intriguing, not alienating, and you wrote an entire piece about the Star Wars theme song.” 

“Stop reading my shit. It’s not ‘a theme song,’” Louis says, aghast, “It’s over a hundred distinct _lietmotifs!”_    

“ _You’re_ over a hundred distinct lietmotifs,” Harry says. He sounds extremely proud of himself, and extremely fond, and Louis hangs up on him.

 

***

 

“Wow, so, this is a worthy soundtrack in the hallowed Tomlinson fortress of musical taste,” Harry says. He hasn't even taken his coat off yet. 

“First of all I'm not actually working right now, so you can fuck right off, second of all Nick Jonas has produced a jam, so you can fuck right off, third of all you can't possibly think you have a leg to stand on criticizing a former boyband member experimenting with house,” Louis says. 

He takes Harry's coat and scoffs at the label, and Harry watches him hang it carefully on the thick wooden hangers that Louis keeps in his hall closet, away from the pile where everyone else will throw their lesser coats. Louis isn't a monster, it's _Gucci._  

“And fuck off,” Louis adds without any rancor, heading back to the kitchen. He hates turning his back on Harry but he likes the frustrated snort Harry lets out when he walks away abruptly, so it evens out. 

“Miike Snow?” Harry says, following him into the kitchen on a track change. Harry’s early, arrived right on the dot of the supposed start time. Among Louis’ friends, this is very early. Niall’s on his way, though, so Louis feels somewhat safeguarded despite the fact that Harry Styles is slouching around his small, cozy London flat. He looks ten feet tall again but Louis reminds himself that he's checked on Wikipedia and Harry Styles is a reasonable height for a rockstar. 

“I can’t believe you wrote so scathingly about pop mainstream production, and I come here and hear this. You've got a total euro club blind spot and that's where I went wrong. I'm hurt, London.” 

“When your people write something that puts me in as much of a party mood as this song,” Louis says, pausing for effect as he looks into the fridge, “You'll know. Because you'll read me writing about it, and I'm always right.” 

“When I write something,” Harry says. He's…he’s skulked up right behind Louis, he's nearly pressed into his back, it's not casual at _all_ and Louis can smell his cologne. It’s awful. And it’s rude, besides, and Louis can’t even turn around, or he’ll bump right into Harry’s dumb, tall, strong body. 

“What?” Louis gets paid for words and he can't remember any. _What_. All the food is still in the fridge, so, good. Louis stares hard at it just in case it’s thinking of making a break for it. 

Harry puts his hand on the back of Louis’ neck. Which is weird. Harry is so weird. Louis can feel his rings, the guitar calluses on the tips of his fingers. He's just barely touching, and Louis is still frozen. 

“I write my own songs, London,” Harry says. 

Luckily for Louis’ sanity, Niall’s ringtone blasts out in the kitchen. Niall’s ringtone is Old School Players’ _Tootsie Roll,_ and Harry’s look of utter judgment unfreezes Louis enough to let him slide out past Harry, smirking. 

“Who's this now?” Niall says, coming in to sit on the counter and make himself useless. 

“Some guy,” Louis says, coolly slicing cucumbers for a garnish. 

“Harry,” Harry says, holding out a hand. Obviously Niall recognizes him because his jaw has rolled down practically to the floor. 

“Harry Styles, what, ok, sure. I’m Niall,” Niall says, giving Harry a shellshocked handshake. Harry smiles winningly. 

“Please ignore him if he decides to start singing a solo, or something. Throw a lime at him.” Louis says, into the bottle of gin. 

“Everything is a solo when you’re actually a solo artist,” Harry says brightly. “Dunno if you know anything about how music works, Tomlinson, but I’d be happy to tell you.” 

“Uh huh. So, liking being back in London?” Niall says. 

“So much,” Harry says, rocking back and forth on his heels. Louis gives him a narrow-eyed look, because he’s seen that exact motion lead to falling down about six out of ten times. Harry’s got his enormous hands shoved into the back pockets of very tight skinny jeans, and for some god-awful reason he’s wearing a silk shirt with flamingos on it that’s undone at the collar, all tan skin and hints of tattoo. Louis stares back into the gin, which is one thing that hasn’t done him any injury.

 

***

 

“What’s this?” Harry asks. He’s standing in the doorway between the living room and Louis’ library. 

“That’s a pianola, and _don’t touch it,”_ Louis exclaims. He scoots out of the kitchen doorway and around Harry’s side faster than thinking. He reaches around Harry’s waist to pluck his hands off the old wood. 

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” Harry says, and he sounds it, his voice gone a little higher. Louis can feel the warm veins on the underside of his wrist, and he lets go with a violent twitch that sends his own fingers wide, starfishing. 

“It’s ok,” Louis says, ducking his chin, and rolling the heavy covering over the Edison. The other ones are covered but Louis was actually playing something on this one, the heavy spool of dark paper still wound up the frame. It becomes a fabric box, covered up in thick cloth, and Louis feels better. 

The library is a small second room off the living room, and Louis glances around it. He hadn’t meant to leave it open. Everything’s in here, really; his books and scores and pianolas, stacks of notepads that he’s taken to concerts, some concert posters he’d rather Harry not judge. Louis puts a hand on his stomach, smooths down his collared shirt. It's got a crisp papery feel, a high quality cotton and synthetic blend, ironed just the hour earlier. 

“I have a bad habit of immediately trying to play every instrument I see, didn't mean to invade your space,” Harry says, rocking back on his heels again. He's nearly always moving a little, like he's still on stage. Or maybe it's that he's so used to being part of a boyband, every piece in motion. His voice is still quiet. 

Louis shrugs. It’s a quiet little moment, suddenly. Harry, studying his face. Harry, maybe trying to say more than something about the pianola. Louis shrugs again, shaking it off, and gestures out toward the kitchen, and his normal, real friends. 

“It’s all good,” he says, and finds he means it. “It's a beautiful thing. Can’t really blame you.” 

“Yeah, I'll be careful,” Harry says thoughtfully. 

Louis makes a lot of cocktails, and when everyone is distracted, he swings the library doors closed. He's not sure if Harry notices.

 

***

 

Everybody is having a great time, including Harry, who’s been kicking his heels on a stool in the kitchen and laughing as Mags tells him about her adventures in sports reporting. 

Harry is lovely, in fact. He’s a lot quieter than Louis expected and he’s mostly listening, drifting easily around the few clusters of two or three people, and asking everyone a lot of sincere questions about their work. Louis feels a swell of pride in his friends, who all work so very hard and who’ve come up through the publishing ranks with him. 

Louis does, however, have to get a little drunk in order to cope with the whole situation of Harry’s pants. 

“Somebody looks nice,” Niall says, coming in and bumping Louis’ elbow. Louis spills an extra large amount of gin into the glass. Whoops. 

“Don’t give him airs, he’s got magazine covers for that,” Louis says. 

“Haha, what? I meant you, dick,” Niall says. Louis purses his mouth. He takes particular care with the cucumbers, because Harry is laughing loudly in the living room at something and it’s made his heart patter. His heart is weak, it was probably startled. 

“Need any help?” Harry asks, startling Louis more. 

“Do not touch anything,” Louis says, without turning around. He makes Harry a cocktail, though. 

“Or you’ll cut my hands off, right,” Harry says, nodding his head and saying it absently. Niall shoots Louis a look across the kitchen island and Louis hustles them out of the kitchen. Obviously nowhere is safe when you’ve invited the enemy into your flat like a some kind of idiot.

 

***

 

Louis ends up chattering about Strauss and Mahler with Kegan, who also writes the occasional classical. Apparently they go too long and too loud because Niall, red in the face and disturbingly chummy with Harry in the corner, starts throwing napkins at Louis. 

“Enough of the old stuff,” he says. Harry sits forward in his chair and looks a tiny bit offended. 

“Strauss was very important,” he says to Niall, and Louis blinks at them because...is that Harry _defending_ him, with a serious look in his eyes? 

“Oh, was he? Tell me more, Harry Styles,” Niall says with a grin. 

“Shut up,” Louis says, in an indiscriminate direction. Kegan snorts. 

“This is just our thing,” Niall says to Harry. “I direct the people to what they really want, and Louis reminds us that we’ve all got to wank off to classics sometimes.” 

“When the Berlin wall fell,” Louis starts, and Niall groans, and throws back a shot. This is definitely not a throwing-back-shots kind of party but Niall is gonna Niall. Louis clears his throat and gets several ticks louder. 

“I said _when the Berlin wall fell,_ you know what happened?” 

“Massive political change?” Kegan asks. 

“Parties, flowers,” Angie adds. 

“The thawing of the cold war,” Mags tries. 

“Yes,” Louis says, nodding, “And when the Berlin wall fell, Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Ninth on both sides.” 

He sits back down on the couch, drinks his fancy cocktail, which is not a shot, thanks. He’s bright-eyed and loud and proud of himself, and he’s not looking at Harry, but he knows Harry is looking at him. He’s drunk, but he doesn’t think he can be blamed for this. 

“It matters,” Louis says, “Even the music that people think is old and tired, the good stuff comes back. It comes back when it matters and people need it. It’s freedom, getting to hear the good stuff. Getting to share it.” 

There’s a nice silence. Louis grins at them. He feels uncomplicated and drunk and he loves them all, his warm circle of stupidly anxious, stupidly talented friends. And then there’s also Harry, who they’re politely pretending isn’t an international celebrity that they’re all a little terrified of. But Harry’s just sitting on the outside of this circle looking in, comfortable and watching. Louis sort of remembers that he thought he had a different outcome in mind for this, but, he feels an undercurrent of happiness. And something like anticipation. 

It's a quiet he rarely feels, and it feels important. 

“Awww, Louieeeee, my favorite little nerd,” Niall says, crawling over to put his head in Louis’ lap. Louis scritches in his hair and Harry watches that too, his eyes a little narrowed, his mouth a little smiling.

 

*** 

“So. When are we gonna talk about your dangerous mega-crush on known rockstar and lothario, Harry Styles?” Niall asks during cleanup, after everyone has left. It’s late or maybe early, and Louis feels wonderful. 

“Oh my god, what? I don't?” Louis squeaks. 

“I am chuffed, is what I am, set your sights high, don’t you?” Niall says, his face a broad grin that Louis has seen many times, especially on track tuesdays and the office holiday parties. 

“Absolutely not,” Louis says. He's busy washing out cocktail glasses, and the steam from the sink explains the red up his neck. He turns the water up, runs soap in a viscous torrent over everything. The ice melts pleasingly fast. 

“Harry Styles came to your _party,”_ Niall says accusingly. “Harry Styles, who sent you tickets to the rest of his tour? Who keeps cheekily saying your words? I thought it was just really aggressive promo? But you’re obsessed with him.” 

“I’m in no way, I invited him out of politeness, really. We’ve just been spending time together because of the profile. Plus it’s philosophically impossible, that I would crush on a rockstar,” Louis says. 

Niall comes over to lean on the cupboards. 

“Hey, it’s all right? You sang musical theatre,” he says, poking Louis in the side. 

“Did we?” Louis mutters mutinously. That was probably a thing that happened if Niall says it happened, but surely everyone does that with their mortal enemy soulmate when they get slightly drunk together. It was only just a few bars, that didn’t even count. 

“You seem to have a lot in common, including eye-fucking each other every time you think of something new and fondly irritated to say about his album,” Niall says. Louis gapes at him, but Niall is still well buzzed from the shots, and thankfully for Louis’ soul and heart and mind, he’s already got a car on the way. 

“It’s too bad, that’s all I’m saying, you know he’s actually quite famous, you could’ve just googled his soulmark and had it at the ready when you met him the first time, done a total mark fraud,” Niall giggles. 

“Hah! Hahah! You disgust me, out, out!” Louis says hysterically, slapping Niall with the dish towel toward the door. 

Niall dissolves into post-party laughs and thumps Louis on the back, and heads home. 

Louis sits down on the floor in his library. He pulls out his phone on an ill-advised impulse because…it’s late at night, Harry looked so good in those jeans, Niall liked him, Harry had been sorry about the pianola. Harry wouldn't even be back to his palatial rockstar London home yet. 

Louis thinks of something to say about Grease. He bets it’ll make Harry laugh.

When he opens the screen there’s already a notification waiting. His editor had emailed an hour ago, bold letters on the screen. 

 _IT tells us we're getting disturbing comments on your review of Harry Styles. There's a lot of attention from the mark thing. Sure he's loving the free publicity. We need to talk security. Call me in the morning._  

Louis drops the phone. He leaves it on the carpet. 

Louis runs a shower. It doesn’t help as much as it usually does. He ends up sitting in the bath with the shower still running over his head, pressing his face to his knees. It's uncomfortably hot in strange places: behind his ears, the side of his neck, between his toes. 

He can’t wash away the mark on his back, or the feeling that there’s a crowd outside his windows, pushing their faces to the glass, trying to see it. But he's clean and warm and alone, and that's something. 

He puts on music. All night, it plays.

 

***

 

“I’m not coming to your shows anymore,” Louis says. 

Harry is looking up at him, because Harry is sprawled out comfortably on the couch in this arena’s dressing room. He looks every inch the sex god rocker that he is in a white t-shirt and tight black jeans, tattoos standing out. Even the sweat matting down the side of his hair is nothing but accoutrement. 

“Didn’t you say that classical music is always on its deathbed, eternally promising that this is its final tour,” he hums, looking back up at the chandelier. This venue is stupid.  Harry seems distant and complicated tonight and he wasn't jumping around the stage as usual. 

“You have to stop quoting my pieces at me, come up with your own thoughts,” Louis says. 

“Like you’d listen to me when you could listen to yourself. I have an alert on my phone for every time you publish, I really like them,” Harry says. 

“Yeah, well, even Stalin liked the opera, didn’t he,” Louis says. Harry rubs a hand down his face and looks between his fingers at Louis. He looks genuinely annoyed tonight. Louis gives him a close-mouthed smile, refusing to be cowed. 

Of course Harry...Harry is actually smart and articulate and kind along with being so hot, and magazines regularly comment on this, so he probably knows it. The empty-headed-celebrity bit runs thin against the hours they’ve now spent on the phone, talking about music and everything else. But Louis has got an itching desire to take whatever’s the opposite stance of Harry’s media faff, if only on principle. Disagreement is an art as much as anything else. 

“That’s harsh, even for you,” Harry says. Louis presses his lips together. 

Harry’s leaving for the European leg of his tour tomorrow morning, so it really doesn’t matter what Louis thinks or whether Harry reads his shit or how this conversation goes, does it? 

“Look, you don't have to keep doing this. Talking to me,” Louis says. “It's fine. You can stop now. You don't have to feel obligated, or whatever. Mystery solved, we know it’s us, we can drop it.” 

“What’s going on? Are you ok? Why are you doing this?” Harry sits up, and he’s frowning in that way that makes Louis’ breath go a little more shallow, panic climbing up his ribs. 

“Nothing,” Louis says, “Nothing. I just, it’s enough, all right?” 

It's been long enough. Harry has had time to see it, even if Louis can't put it into words. He's not the way you're meant to be with a soulmate, in the movies or the songs. He can't be that on command, never has been. 

“You don’t want to talk anymore?” Harry says. He’s up from the couch now, stalking into Louis’ space. Harry mostly resists using his stage presence against Louis but they both seem weirdly fragile tonight, tempting the gulf between them. 

“Don’t just repeat my words back to me, you need a shower,” Louis says between his teeth. 

“Why do you do this?” Harry asks. “Pretend you aren't dying to figure out why we have each other's marks. You can't stop talking to me.” 

A lot of things about Harry have felt new and unintelligible, but not this. Louis is used to this feeling with men who look at his face like Harry looks at his face: like there's a wall as high as an arena roof, but as thin as the hairs on a violin bow. 

“Shut up,” he says, but he sounds breathy and unsure. Harry's close and he's leaning closer and Louis can't help the ways his eyes flicker around his face, to his mouth. 

“What would you rather do, London? Tired of talking? Tired of words? Want to solve this another way?” Harry asks. He’s still too close. 

“You think I'm a problem to be solved?” Louis says. Harry gives him the exact look that Niall gives him when he's being pedantic about metaphors. _Everyone knows what it means emotionally, twat,_ Niall says. 

“I _know_ you're a problem,” Harry growls. 

Louis also knows that his mouth is a little open, his eyes going a little wide. It’s been a really long time, is the thing. It’s been a really long time since he's wanted someone to touch him and Harry is kind of a magnet, like Louis’ iron-filled blood wants to rush toward him. 

When they kiss he doesn't even know who to blame. 

Harry’s face is hot, almost startlingly hot, maybe from the concert, like he's burning up. He kisses with no hesitation and Louis pushes back to match it. It's a feverish bloom across his mouth. Harry grips Louis’ jaw in a dangerously large hand and tries to maneuver him to the exact angle that Harry wants, and Louis fights him the whole way. 

Harry shoves them back, brushing their legs past a loose amp and ignoring Louis’ surprised, outraged grunt. He's not gentle, but he does keep Louis from knocking his head entirely into the wall. Louis catches the desperation, grasps at Harry's narrow hips, his long sides. To stay upright, and to chase down the frantic need to touch.

Harry tastes like sweat and silk and pyrotechnics. It’s dripping down the back of Louis’ throat and filling his lungs. 

Harry kisses deep into his mouth. Louis kisses him back, softer than he means to be, but Harry’s surprisingly soft, lush and slow like he’s taking his time, even though he’s holding Louis so tight that Louis can’t really move. It's just so good, finding how to fit together, wet and desperate and searching, snatching hazy breaths they can barely even manage. Harry's body is firm and steady and promising, a landscape of desire. 

Harry tips Louis’ head back with his height, finds the curve of Louis’ lower back and claws at it. Louis bends without meaning to, moans without meaning to, slicks a helpless tongue into Harry's mouth without meaning to and Harry fucking _grins._  

“There you are,” he says. 

“God, why would you say something,” Louis bites out. 

“My bad,” Harry says, throaty, awful, it does awful things to Louis’ insides. 

Harry’s loose and ferocious and Louis can feel the adrenaline skittering in his veins. Or maybe it's not even the show because Louis feels it too, contagious. He grips Harry's t-shirt in an uncareful fist. He doesn't know if he's pulling Harry closer or keeping it up like a partition between them. 

Louis finds Harry's big obnoxious mouth again. Harry runs his hands over Louis like he has to discern the shape of him. It’s making Louis shiver and he's sliding into it, sliding into Harry. He can feel a fierce flush running up his neck and over his cheeks. His heart pounds, like he's running a race. He's halfway to hard already and Harry's pulled them so tightly in together that he might be able to tell. Louis tries to keep his thighs turned close in together, but his feet slip in between Harry's legs. 

“You're shaking,” Harry whispers. He's threaded through the back of Louis’ head, hand skated up through the deep tangle of his hair and flat on his scalp. It's possessive and assured in a way that makes Louis swallow, paralyzed between loving it and hating it. 

“Don't talk to me,” Louis says, dragging Harry's head back down to distract him. He kisses Harry so hard their teeth click. He feels a bruise forming on the left side of his lower lip. 

Harry turns his fingers in Louis’ hair, _hard._ It makes a punishing needle of pain and Louis chokes into a very hushed moan, and his thigh turns open even though he's extremely certain that he expressly told it not to. 

Harry's watching him with far too much calculus in his eyes, sliding his own hips forward, crushing Louis against the wall. Louis is helpless, trapped in Harry's arms. He needs a new distraction tactic so he bites the line of Harry's jaw, the salt-tinged taste of Harry's sweat on his lips. Harry's eyes finally flutter shut. 

Then he ruins it. 

“I don't want me to go either,” Harry whispers. 

Louis shoves him away. Harry staggers back, his balance always a weak point. Harry’s eyes are bright, mouth even more red than usual, hair mussed. He looks predatory and open and good and he's half-hard at least. Louis can see his own fist imprinted in Harry’s shirt. 

“I _don't_ want to talk to you,” Louis gets out. He's still shaking, shaking like a leaf, going to shake apart. Harry's face twists with something, concern and anger or something. 

“Then get out of my backstage,” Harry says. 

It’s not like Louis runs, but he does scare a couple of security guards on the way out. He gets all the way to the train, halfway back in to the city, before his heart stops pounding. 

“Fuck,” Louis says to himself. Sometimes that's the only word that fits.


	2. B-SIDE

Niall’s mark is charming. It crawls around his left thigh and says, _I hope you had fun_  

Everyone says, don't guess things from marks, don’t let them mess with your head. Marks could be nonsense, after all. They’re usually nothing more than accidents, mumbles, the banal things people say to strangers.

Everyone ignores this very sound advice. 

Those words on your body root into you. How could they not? For instance: Niall is carefree and easy. Niall has a soulmate defined by the hope that Niall is having fun.

 

***

 

Two weeks without talking to Harry, and Louis feels like he might fall out of his own skin.

Two weeks, and then Harry calls him at eleven pm on a friday, which is too early to be as drunk as Harry sounds.

“Aren’t you in Spain?” Louis asks. He’s wrapped up in a blanket on his couch catching up on Bake Off. He’s sleepy and therefore vulnerable, which is why he answers immediately. He also drops the phone in his lap three times before he can swipe the call open. It’s only being tired from writing four takes and seeing two shows this week, that’s putting a hit like a kick drum beat in his stomach.

“I’ll tell you what, Louis Tomlinson, I’m not certain where I am,” Harry says. He sounds trashed, really trashed. He sounds gravelly from all of the yelling. He's yelling too much in his live shows. Harry's not made for yelling, he's made for ballads.

“Your brand consultants ever tell you you don’t have to imitate Jagger’s lifestyle too?” Louis asks.

“Don’t be mean,” Harry says. Louis flops down on the couch, twirls his toes under the blanket. 

“I can’t help it, I'm a shit person who makes a living out of dislike. _I can’t be right for somebody else, if I'm not right for me,_ ” Louis sings. He would never dare except that Harry was so drunk. And maybe, because he feels so relieved to hear Harry’s voice again, it makes him giddy.

“Oh, Sammy. I love you,” Harry says with a gravelly sigh.

He’s talking Sammy Davis Jr and not Louis Tomlinson, Louis is sure. Pretty sure. Nobody loves Louis Tomlinson the way he deserves. Maybe the Uchida recording of Schubert’s sonata in G-major from Phillips, maybe _that_ loves him the way he deserves.  

“I can't believe your drunk dial is to the only person on the planet who's mean to you, what a waste of a good time. Can't even imagine how many people would like you drunk on their phone,” Louis says.

“You’re not mean. You’re not mean to anybody else, only me,” Harry says, observationally. Then he yawns into the phone, a smacking, disinhibited noise.

“Well, I’m. Gotta keep you on your toes,” Louis says.

“I know,” Harry says, enunciating too much, like vocal training knocked on the door of Harry’s drunk brain and said _hey is this an interview? Ten years of them telling you to stop mumbling, you know._

“Do you?” Louis asks. He tucks the blanket around his sides with his free hand, under his armpits. He is now a cozy burrito. Cozy burritos are impervious.

“It scares me, too, how much I miss you,” Harry says.

Louis is glad he’s already lying down.

There’s a strangely companionable silence. Louis has missed a lot of things including the comfort he feels radiating from Harry, even when Harry is being an upsetting and uninterpretable thing in his life. Which is also all the time.

“ _I can’t be right for somebody else, if I’m not right for me,”_ Harry sings, and he goes on, drunk off his ass, loops the whole chorus. It’s…marvelous. It’s drunk and blurry and out of nowhere, yet Louis can hear the late sixties in the background, jazz percussion and sincere horns and soaring charisma.

If Louis adores Harry Styles’ voice, nobody has to know. He closes his eyes. Harry Styles is serenading him through a tinny international phone call, syrup and glamour and a better intonation than Louis has sober. Harry would probably serenade anybody in the world right now. But it’s Louis, somehow.

“Are you home, whatever home is on tour? Are you drinking water?” Louis asks when Harry stops.

“I really liked kissing you. I’m not that scared. I've been waiting for you, and you can't even decide if you want to know me,” Harry says, in a rush, like he needs to get it all out. He’s drunk and sad and fucked in the head. He's a blisteringly sexy millionaire. He's an act that isn't real. He’s _not_ Louis’ soulmate. He can’t be.

Louis puts a hand in the center of his chest, just below the sternum, just above the rise of his stomach, the bubbling place where his body melts together. He is a simple system of water and tissue, he is a reliable pulse, he is molecules moving the air into patterns. He is _safe._

“It's just a novelty, you just want what you can't have. Are you drinking water?” Louis asks.

“I worked my whole life just to be good enough for you, and I’m still not,” Harry says.

Louis stares at the ceiling. He has no idea what to do with this feeling that’s come at him as if from a very long distance. It’s heartbreak and heart-healing combined. It’s a small awkward teenager dancing around the kitchen to Fleetwood Mac, not yet a star, carrying praise emblazoned on his chest that he hasn't yet earned.

“You are good, you know you're good, the whole world thinks you're good,” Louis says at last. He has to clear his throat to say it.

Harry makes a sad, deflated noise, like air coming out of a damaged toy.

“I don’t care about the whole world thinking I’m good, I just care about you thinking I'm good,” Harry says. Louis snorts, involuntarily.

“Oh, babe,” Louis says, and he doesn’t know if it’s an accident or not. “Only people already loved by the whole world dismiss it like that.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs, “That’s it exactly. That’s what you do. You cut me up with just words, I don’t know how you just do that.”

His voice has a worrying sincerity. He’s too drunk to remember this conversation.

“Practice,” Louis says. God, where even is Harry? If he were here, Louis would stuff him into his bed and throw the duvet over him and make him eat a banana, potassium for tomorrow’s hangover.

He's a fucking millionaire. He has a million dollars and a million people who love him and he doesn't need anything at all from Louis.

“Have you got any bananas?” Louis asks. He smiles over the word like it’s their inside joke even though they’re in the middle of what might be classified as a fight. Louis can’t classify anything about this and classifying things is kind of exactly his wheelhouse.

“You had a review out today, Bishop Briggs. I like her too. I read your pieces. I read all your pieces,” Harry says. That's--no, Louis has written a lot. That's probably not even true, that Harry did that.

“I didn’t mean--with you, you know? It’s ok to get a bad review, you’re still really good. It’s still a really good album, it’s just that transitions are tricky, it’s only ever opinion,” Louis says. To himself as much as Harry, a reminder. God, this is insane. He doesn’t comfort people over his opinions. It wasn’t even bad, it was only a mixed review. It was _complicated._

“I actually really like your music,” Louis admits. The blanket isn't nearly heavy enough. He's going to pull the fur one out from the living room footstool when he can move again.

“I know. I don’t care about the review. I respect the review. You think I can’t keep working? You think I take all this for granted? You think I’m not trying to learn from you?” Harry has wheeled into drunkenly belligerent and it’s still managed to disarm Louis entirely. 

“Um,” Louis says, because right now, he has zero idea what he thinks. About anything.

But apparently Harry does. 

“I love my music, don’t worry. But you. God, it’s annoying how you love so much,” Harry hiccups. He's so trashed. He's popstar trashed and he could be doing whatever popstars do with this tequila-sounding hoarse sex-voice. Blazing through a city of hookups, calling his popstar model pro athlete exes, all six feet tall with acres of unmarked skin. He could be out with his bohemian creatives crowd, anything at all besides calling Louis and being wildly confusing. And making his heart hurt. 

“You're out with a popstar model pro athlete right now, aren't you,” Louis asks. 

“London, love,” Harry says, and he sounds exaggeratedly reproving, “Athletes never have anything to _talk_ about.” 

Talking isn't exactly how Louis imagines Harry spending his non-concert, non-sober time. Harry hiccups.

“Stop saying love, you aren't from where I'm from, you can't get away with it,” Louis says.

“You _love_ all of it, all the music, all the musicians,” Harry says.

“It's my job,” Louis says sharply. This at least comes instinctively, the language to protect himself from the parasitic version of Louis that people imagined because of the mark. _Obsessive. Groupie. Wanting._

“Every single time I played a show I wondered if you were finally gonna be there, if you'd finally like it. Since I was a kid. I never imagined it was going to be your job. I don’t want to be your job,” Harry says. 

“You’re not,” Louis says, helpless. Harry said he was going to _learn._

“You’re not my job, Harry, I answered the phone because I miss you,” Louis says. It’s for that kid in the kitchen with only one mark on his chest. 

“Oh good, I really miss you,” Harry says. “I’ll come back and you can be as mean at me as you like and it’ll be great. Love looking at your mouth while you’re mouthy.”

“Nothing about this is fair,” Louis says. Harry’s humming scraps of music now, losing his last tremulous grip on coherent conversation. Louis pulls a couch pillow onto his stomach and holds it flat against his torso.

Louis has thought about his mark his whole life. He’s feared it, hated it, forged a strength out of resisting it. And not one of those things prepares him for the other side, which is that Harry Styles grew up knowing the only way he could find his soulmate was to make every show good enough to get his praise, every time.

Harry falls asleep on the line, or at least it goes quiet and fuzzy. Louis doesn't hang up. He leaves his phone open on the couch next to his head and wakes up to a dead battery.

 

***

 

Radio transmission changed the way that people listened to music. Sound could be sent skipping across distances never before imagined, filling the minutes of the day in a way that live music never had. Songs could flow straight from packed city centers into distant small towns with only static and sparks in the way.

Radio also let people broadcast soulmarks. People tried all kinds of stunts to get on the radio, a half-second of chaos and yelling their phrase, trying to distribute it.

It merged with art, of course, just as radio was changing the length and format of songs, so was the idea of mass advertising your mark via entertainment. After the mark Prohibition, songwriting in the twenties was saturated with mark-lyricism; Louis helped write a chapter about it for an American anthology, once. It fell out of vogue once it got easier to advertise your marks, less of a drive to put them into a song that might become a hit. But for a while it was everybody’s dream, to write the song that made it to the radio, that might play to a crowd of millions, that might find the one person worth more to you than those millions.

 

***

 

Harry has sent forty-eight deep red roses to Louis’ office. Forty-eight roses occupy the majority of the space on the desk. Niall is holding his laptop tight to his chest, and six other staff writers are in their tiny office, boggling over coffee cups at him.

“Hi,” Louis says, ignoring the roses, ignoring the boggling, ignoring the havoc that is his life.

“I had a really great thought, want to pitch a piece on industrial anxiety and all those experimental pieces using manufactured equipment in classical music. Car parts as percussion, good title? Could talk about the canons in the 1812 overture and draw a line to worker’s rights concerns now, global economies, etcetera.” 

“Harry _fucking_ Styles?” Niall asks.  

“Niall Fucking Horan, you have a monopoly on that middle name,” Louis says, primly. He sits down behind the desk. His view is obscured by roses. There are so goddamn many of them. He can’t put them on the floor, because the floor is full of people. 

“Car parts, Ni,” he says. He makes a wheel-driving motion with his hands. 

“Were you going to tell me that Harry Fucking Styles, who said _your_ words at his concert, is sending you tickets and jazz records and roses? I know that my best friend did not _say somebody’s mark and not tell me,_ ” Niall says.  

True enough, there’s a Sammy Davis Jr vinyl in a beautiful case on the edge of the desk. Apparently Harry hasn’t woken up in the morning with no memory of their conversation and he’s also magicked up a present with his celebrity powers and Louis doesn’t know which thing is making him feel more crumbly inside. 

“To be fair, the entire world knows both of our marks, so it’s not like I've kept anything from you,” Louis says. Anybody could have googled either one of them. Of course the electricity in his bones, that part was probably hard to fake. 

“Louis, are you mad,” Niall says. Louis rather wishes the entire office weren’t crowded in here, their eyes gone from boggling to sympathetic. The air was dense with plant-rose smell. 

“What do you need?” Niall asks, softer this time. 

“Honestly I have no idea,” Louis says, picking his fingers over the record. He loves it. He loves the feel of it under his hands. He’s going to play it all evening tonight at home. 

“He doesn’t come with _instructions,”_ Louis says.

Louis only has Harry’s voice in his ears, crooning at him over the phone, taking up all the room in his head. He only has Harry’s print splashed on his body, taking up all the room on his skin.

 

***

 

_you miss me :)_

Harry texts, startling Louis out of a contemplation between rewatching season two Bake Off, catching up on his stack of movies, or diligently, finally reading the NYT spread on Copland. Copland is a little vernacular for Louis’ taste, very American. But once in a while he misses New York.

 _anything I expressed was emotionally compromised due to Tracey Thorn releasing lovely tracks in her fifties,_ Louis texts back.

 _oh you did such a nice job on that one,_ Harry texts. Louis knows for a fact that Harry did three interviews and met fifty fans at some charity thing, there’s no way he had the time. It was a throw-away blogpost. Louis is sure even Niall didn’t read it.

“ _a portal to familiar joy,” loved that line,_ Harry texts. Louis settles on Bake Off, needs soothing pastel colors and to stare into mixing bowls for a while.

_it's all good but it's my favorite when you aren't giving a grade and it's just you_

_you’re not allowed to know about things that make me happy,_ Louis texts, after a minute of failing to come up with anything better.

 _i'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else,_ Harry texts.

 

***

 

_I have some songs_

They called him _music_ when he was seven, and then _groupie_ when he was thirteen, and then worse things, and then he was no longer stupid enough to take his shirt off in front of people.  

Music, Louis always thought, was particularly nice in that you could enjoy it with your eyes closed.

_good evening london_

 

***

 

Louis googles _Harry Styles soulmark_ and slams his laptop shut a second after the results load.  

Harry spends a great deal of time nearly naked around people with very good cameras. 

Louis had a panic attack in a water park, once.

Louis taps his fingers on the silver surface of his closed laptop. He hooks just the edge of the lid with his thumbnail and cracks it a hair. Then he lets it slip back down. 

Louis has the whole laptop backed up on a hard drive. He could probably throw it off his balcony, and go buy a new laptop, and still make today’s deadline.  

 

***

 

“I’m sorry I drunk dialed you,” Harry says, when Louis calls.

“Are you?” Louis asks. He’s on the street wandering around looking for some takeout. There was a stack of biscuits outside a cafe window and a kid playing around with a guitar and an old couple in the park holding hands. This combination of nonsense makes something scrape apart inside Louis’ ribcage and he has his phone in his hands without quite knowing how it got there.

“No,” Harry says. “Please come to my next show? It's a quick flight. I could send you a ticket.” 

“No,” Louis parrots back. He misses Harry. Harry's voice feels good, a clicking-into-place feeling. Putting a record on in his library on a Saturday morning.

“All right, London,” Harry says easily. “What are you reading?”

“Still stuck in the same bloody Walter Pater chapter,” Louis sighs. 

“I looked him up, couldn't even read the first five pages,” Harry says.

“No, not worth it. I’ll send you more readable stuff. I’m trying to pick lunch,” Louis says. 

“Well, you hate everything this week, so that’s hard,” Harry says.

“Some weeks are just stupid weeks. London food scene might as well be San Francisco these days, all particle board counters polished to look like good wood, single origin pourover bullshit,” Louis sneers.

“Tell me more,” Harry says. Louis can hear the laugh like a promise underneath. Louis takes a deep breath. 

“I mean, am I in Shimokitazawa or Castro or Brooklyn? Do we really believe that we’re anti-corporate as long as we spell giant words out in faux-old lightbulbs? Here’s the thing, my rockstar friend, for those of us who live in the real world, we’re not going to solve our economic anxieties by embracing vapid global imperialism warehouse aesthetic and filling soulless spaces with unobjectionable banjo-synth.” 

Harry laughs and laughs. Louis smirks at the park and the shops in front of him and sighs again, but it’s a quiet and content sigh. It makes his stomach feel better hearing Harry, it’s not his fault.

“Get a sandwich, none of those cheeses you made Zayn pick off for you when we went out after our last London gig. Since we’re not there to save you from weird food today,” Harry says. Louis nods. It’s a good call. 

Harry sounds so sweet today, a kind of sleepy burr in the back of his voice. It’s an off day, and he’s outside somewhere. Louis sort of likes trying to infer Harry’s surroundings from nothing but infrequent audio cues. 

They chat nothing, Louis’ guilty pleasure house music and a talk show that made Harry eat weird things blindfolded and their favorite places in London when it’s sunny. Harry misses London, he claims. 

“Hey, you called me your friend,” Harry says. Louis blinks, doesn’t say anything. Harry hums a bar from one of his songs. Louis can fill in the entire backing behind it, guitars and all. 

“You want a ticket to Amsterdam?” Harry asks.

“No,” Louis says, but he says it absently, tilting his face into the sunshine and wondering if it’s sunny where Harry is.

 

***

Louis isn't proud of the fact that he listens to Harry's entire album twice and then locks himself in his bedroom to have a wank about all of his feelings and specifically the feeling of Harry's voice filling every crack in his cracked-up body. 

It’s been a long, long time since someone’s touched him like this. But he feels fucked up, like he’s been touched anyway, over-sensitive and strung out. Waking up in the morning against a warm body, thirsty for more.

He bites his tongue between his top and bottom front teeth and grinds down into the bed. It’s weird, he doesn’t know why he’s facedown except that he needs somewhere to put his face where it won’t be seen. It takes a while like this, awkward angle into his fist, uncomfortable, even. His muscles feel tense and he can't unlock them until he finally shivers off between his fist and the sheets, friction and ache.

He keeps his shirt on, as ever, even here now alone. It's paper thin, though. It feels like the heat from his body might melt through it.

 

***

 

Louis is the one who’s drunk too early this time. He’s on the floor of his library with his head underneath the pianola keyboard. There’s a pedal getting in the way of his head, but the psychological comfort is worth it.

“Hey London,” Harry answers, clearing his throat and sounding surprised. Sounding pleased. Louis takes the phone away from his ear to frown at the clock, which is a bloody liar. The clock claims it’s one in the morning and it can’t possibly be. 

“Harry Styles,” Louis says, in a small grunt.

“That’s meeee,” Harry drawls. He sounds pleased, still. 

“Not me, I am Louis,” Louis says, clearly. He points two fingers in the air and accidentally knocks them into the bottom wood beneath the keyboard frame. 

“Louis Tomlinson, you all right?” Harry asks. Louis listens carefully for audio cues, but it’s extremely quiet in the background of Harry’s phone. 

“No popstar athletes eavesdropping on us,” Louis says, with satisfaction. 

“You’re insane,” Harry says. There’s a shifting sound, maybe Harry’s body against a mattress. Louis flicks the wood of the pianola, but gently. He takes care of his things. Harry doesn’t know that. 

“Did you mean it?” Louis asks.

“Did I mean what?” Harry asks. It’s a reasonable question but Louis still scowls. 

“The record, the roses, wanting me to come visit you on tour, did you _mean_ it? I’m not going to, to turn into someone else,” Louis says, looking up into the grain of the pianola.  

“I was convinced of that in the introduction of your MFA,” Harry says. He sounds like he’s jolted to full wakefulness now.

“The part where you finished summarizing forty years of critical consensus on mark-lyricism? And then said you were going to disagree with all of it? I really got some insight out of that.”

“You read my thesis?” Louis asks. Louis isn't even sure if Louis remembers that thing.

“Of course,” Harry says gravely, like he looks up old papers from pedantic, earnest baby music critics as a matter of course and he reads them in his spare time in between playing gigantic arena shows. Most normal thing in the world.

“Well, I’m half through. Two-thirds.”

“They _were_ wrong, mark-lyricism is a lot more complex than people act like it was, it’s not all gooey sap. It’s also like, protest on the regulation of speech, and revolutions, and stuff,” Louis says firmly, although if he’s honest he does not recall any of it at this particular moment.

“I absolutely believe you,” Harry says.

Louis rests his knee against a pianola leg and contemplates what's becoming of him. Harry is smart and just as interesting as he seems on tv. Louis can’t stop wondering if he’s accurately remembering the shape of him, the curl of his hair behind his ears, the arch in his eyebrow when he’s stopping himself from snapping at Louis, the splay of his legs out from a couch when he’s tired. It's maddening. 

“You’re maddening,” Louis sighs. 

“I’ve been told. I’m playing Paris, easy flight, I've got an off day, you can stay at our hotel. One email to my assistant, I can send it from my phone right now,” Harry says. 

“Huh, you really do just say things right out loud,” Louis says. 

“Paris has a lot of really good pastries,” Harry says.

“You’re not wrong,” Louis says.

“Been a while since you’ve had a really good pastry?” Harry asks.

“I do like pastry, I do. Do you even go out to the shops, or does someone just bring you things on a silver platter?” Louis asks.

“I don’t know this ‘shop’ word you keep using, but if there are some I’ll find them for you,” Harry says. He keeps doing this, turning everything into something he can do for Louis. A million little strings tugging him in.

“You can’t _buy my cooperation_ ,” Louis says, and Harry just laughs, low and satisfied.

“I’m definitely not, but you should know I like all that. If you keep talking to me, the roses were only the beginning. And _you_ like sixties jazz, so you like romance. Why’d you call, London?” Harry asks fondly. “What can I make happen for you?” 

“I want to try this, this soulmate thing, maybe just like a tiny bit. A tiny, little, small bit. A very small, like a motif, like just, just like, four beats.” Louis says. 

“Yeah?” Harry asks. He sounds _loud._ Louis snorts.

“Don't yell in my ear,” he grumbles. 

“Yeaaaah?” Harry breathes in a long and awful little growl, deep and sexy. 

“I hate you?” Louis says, while he thinks about what he wants.

“I want to come see you, away from all this. Away from normal life, so I can think about it. Just, just, just miss you, doesn't make me a different person,” Louis’ voice drifts away, embarrassed. 

“Drink water, go to sleep, wake up, and come find me, just as you are,” Harry says. Louis is drunk and sleepy and terrified enough to agree.

***

 

Player pianos were invented several times over in rapid succession. France and Germany contributed pneumatic mechanisms and the idea of perforated paper rolls, respectively. But the real success was the pianola.   

The pianola was American, and it was invented in Detroit, of all places. It played songs from huge heavy rolls of perforated paper, holes punched out to encode the notes. You could buy all kinds of music for your pianola, but by far, people bought do-it-yourself kits to punch out their own soulmarks, or just carved the words into specialty blank rolls. The punch marks scrolled in a hypnotizing loop, powered by a human foot on a lever, and the pianola translated the soulmark words into rather nonsensical melodies. It was messy and faddish and a silly trick, really. 

People adored it. Pianolas were the most popular entertainment device for at least thirty years. In the early 1930s they were as common as radios, one in every home. By the 1940s they were lost to time, victims of the amplified phonograph and every subsequent advancement of electrical, and then digital, music. 

Initial popularity and rapid obscurity together make things easy to collect. Louis has contained himself to three, so far: a 1917 Tonkunst in a dark-stained cherry wood, a fantastic 1922 Ampico in white that lived in a Detroit club for most of its life, and his favorite, a gorgeous rough wood Singer-Edison 1899, one of the very first ever made. It has an alternating current worked into its system. You can't feel it but sometimes Louis lets his hands rest on the keys, wonders if the buzzing current is on the edge of perception, waiting to break free. 

He has the music rolls, too. Warbling banal songs from the tens, mostly. But he also has scores and scores of soulmark rolls, hand-written with the small square metal pegs sold so that you make square letters of your mark. They’re hardly even melodies. You can buy them for a dime, just rounds of papers with ordinary people’s lost words punched into patterns. Louis loves them. It's like each one is an autobiography of longing, and searching, and finding.

 

***

 

Paris looks like the postcards, for once.  It’s holding off a storm, and there’s a cloud cover shot through with the lowering sun. The rooftops glow in an unreal, dissipated light, the air feels heavy, waiting for rain. 

Louis waits for Harry at the lobby of a hotel that he was not mentally prepared for. It has way more columns than a single hotel should have, and chairs so big he’s afraid to sit down in case he gets lost in one, Harry never finds him, Harry has changed his mind, he’s wearing the wrong shirt anyway, he should’ve stayed home and worked on the chapter for his book in his library, he should’ve put on another shirt, this hotel is ridiculous. 

People keep trying to carry his bag, so he’s got it clutched tightly in two fists. He’s running takes in his mind, a Bernstein piece, something about new opera in the states. 

Harry grabs him from behind and then has the sense to look apologetic when Louis flails out of his loose hug. 

“Oh, sorry, hi, hi,” Harry says, beaming. He looks--he’s in horrible tight red jeans and a fitted white t-shirt, he’s got movie star sunglasses pushed into his hair and deeper tan across his cheekbones, green eyes standing out clear and brilliant. Louis makes some kind of awful face and Harry just keeps beaming. 

“Well, I made it, better be some music in this town,” Louis says. 

“Are you nervous?” Harry asks. He sounds a little astonished. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Louis says. Harry goes back to beaming at him, and takes Louis’ bag. Louis trails behind him and hopes that nothing is about to explode under his feet.

 

***

 

They throw Louis’ bag in a room that's actually many rooms, more like a flat than a hotel room. Louis had spent the short elevator ride thinking unhelpful things about whether he should try less snark, whether Harry would have an entourage and a million fans, what on earth he was doing, how he was going to handle the sparks that were flying around his ribs now that he was back in physical space with Harry.   

There wasn’t an entourage, just Harry, taking off his sunglasses and fiddling with them and looking about as lost as Louis feels, in the middle of his enormous hotel room. 

“This is the most ludicrous hotel,” Louis says, “You could house my whole family in this hotel.” 

“That doesn’t seem hard for any hotel?” Harry says. He looks more comfortable immediately, now that Louis has put his hands on his hips and is wrinkling his nose at the full bar and the doors that disappear off into other rooms. 

“It’s a big family,” Louis says. 

“There's also a really big heated pool,” Harry says, kicking Louis’ foot with his own and still grinning. 

“Not gonna take my clothes off two seconds into this,” Louis says. 

“I think there are three different bathrooms in this suite,” Harry says, looking around like he hasn't even noticed. 

This seems like an opportunity to start to demonstrate what might freak Harry out, and the hotel will probably send people up to get his bag if he needs to make a break for it. Louis came determined to have a real conversation, so. He's going to _try._ Why not do everything at once? 

“Ok,” he says.

 

***

 

Louis has stopped on the edge of the pool. Harry’s already in it, looking up at him, that million-watt smile, bright enough to shine over stagelights. 

“What’s up? Scared of water? Secretly a cat?” Harry says. 

“Hah,” Louis says. He loves water, actually. He’s hanging on by a tiny, thin thread. Harry’s dark and light in the water, ends of his hair soaking, and Paris is getting dark around them. They’re completely alone out here, and Louis has a horrified moment of wondering whether Harry’s done some rockstar thing like reserve an entire outdoor heated pool, on the off chance Louis would agree to a swim.

Louis considers forcing himself, but, he also feels like throwing up. He smooths over the front of the t-shirt he's still wearing with his swim shorts, and then holds his hand flat on his stomach and doesn’t move it. It’s a noticeably strange gesture.

Harry moves closer through the water. Harry, Arguably Normal Body Person, is bare-chested in grey shorts and he’d walked straight from the deck into the pool halfway through a sentence, toppled into it so blase that Louis had yelped. Droplets run over his shoulders, trace the outline of his tattoos. He’s got a soulmark on his chest, Louis knows that by now, but he’s not looking at it. He looks at the surface of the water, glimmering in the hotel lights. 

“Hey, I’m going to tell you something, and it’s a thing I actually mean this time,” Louis says. 

Harry nods. Louis picks his way around the towels that Harry dropped carelessly on the deck, and sits on the edge. He puts his feet in the water, up to the knee, dampening the edge of his shorts. 

“Sometimes I have these feelings about being safe, and my body,” Louis says. “And it’s like, it’s fine, you know? It’s fine. I’m fine. It's just they're really strong feelings. It just makes me do slightly weird things. Like one of those things is I like to wear clothes.” 

“Certain clothes?” Harry asks. He’s confused, which is understandable. Frankly, it’s always confusing to Louis. He plucks a corner of his shirt. 

“Like mostly, I don’t like people seeing my mark,” Louis says. He means to sound cool and indifferent and maybe cleverer or wittier than he feels but there’s not really any elegant way to say it. 

“I think I'm fine looking,” he says, and shoots a quick suppressing glare at Harry, who's clearly holding back an opinion on that-- 

“But it makes things weird. Even, even things like being in a pool. Like, sometimes I feel ok with all my skin out, sometimes I don’t.”

It comes and goes. With the public attention from Harry and the marks and everything, it’s been coming back. For a while it was all the time, and even Niall learned to hug Louis carefully, from the front where he could see it coming, and only when he was in long sleeves. 

Louis doesn’t look at Harry. Instead, he sticks both of his hands in the heated pool water and makes a cup, runs it over his knees. It’s lovely, wet and different and warm, something that his body likes. His body is still a body that likes things.

“Hey,” Harry says, and Louis can hear him wading closer through the pool, “But the water’s ok? I just, we can do whatever, whatever you like. Whatever feels safe.” Harry asks. Louis risks a glance at his face. He’s tilted his head toward Louis, eyebrows lifted. It’s intense, but somehow sweet and tentative. 

Louis recalls that Harry Styles is a person who can make an entire stadium of people fall in love with him at the same time, and doesn’t know if he feels reassured.  

“Yeah, yeah, don’t distract me from this, you promised me a poncy rich person pool and all,” Louis says, clearing his throat, bringing the brash a little back, just to show that it’s still _him,_ you know, even if he did just kind of yield, that Harry had better not think he’s got a magical soulmate upper hand, now. 

“I mean, gotta make it worth my while to have come here,” Louis says. He kicks out and splashes Harry, right in the face. Harry spits out pool water. 

“Oh, so much talk. So get in the fucking pool with your shirt on, or whatever you like,” Harry says, but he’s laughing.

“I’m warming up to it,” Louis says sanctimoniously, and doesn’t keep a close enough eye on Harry because Harry’s up on him, grabbing him by the feet and yanking him straight into the pool.

 

***

 

Ok, Harry hasn't acted different, and the problem is that now Louis doesn’t have a plan except for the vague half-awake thought he’d had on the plane, something like, _maybe trying to be a soulmate for a day means I shouldn’t be a dickhead about pop,_ but then Bruno Mars comes on the quiet speakers beside the pool and Louis absolutely, fucking, cannot contain his vitriol when it comes to _Locked Out of Heaven._  

“I can’t even tell you how much I hate this kick beat, it’s like I’m being murdered by a _robot_ ,” he says, floating well on his back despite the drag from his soaked shirt, staring up at the pool lights.

“Funny, robots and electronica, that seems right up your alley though,” Harry says, but Louis can hear that he’s absolutely making fun. Louis can hear the grin that he loosens on the world so carelessly, even just in the sound of his voice.

“He’s got a lot of performance talent, and they murder him, and it, and me, this song was playing in every cab I rode the entire summer it came out, it makes me want to hurl, I actually _know the idiotic track they put behind this,_ because I have a human ear, which is capable of recognizing craptastic computer drums,” Louis says.  

“Over-corrected in post and filled from a track,” Harry nods. “But I'm actually curious, because you like so much electronica, why that and not this?”

Louis slaps the water with a palm, drifting and thinking. It's a good question and he's actually meant to articulate this better at some point.

“I don't like being lied to,” he says. “I like when people use patterns like a tool, not like an illusion. Music has a history, people have voices, don't make me listen to the same thing behind twenty bangers and pretend it's different.”

There’s more that he’s about to say, but Harry’s waded over and put a big, warm hand on the center of Louis’ chest. Light, exploratory, and slow enough that Louis could push it away, if he wanted.

“I'll send you my voice notes,” Harry says, “I really do write my songs.”

It's quiet, only the lapping of Louis’ hands and legs turning mild circles.

“That doesn’t, it’s fine either way,” Louis says.

“It matters to you, and that’s all right, because I’m not who you thought I was, and it's making me so happy to get to show you that,” Harry says.

Louis thinks, _maybe being a soulmate means whatever the fuck I want it to mean._ He flounders back to standing and gets the rest of Harry’s hair wet, but then he’s standing again and he can kiss Harry, pricks under his fingernails, shivers through his back, so _right._

“Oh, thank god, didn't even have to fight this time,” Harry says when he can get a second, and Louis slaps the water hard enough to spray both of them.

They get over to the edge of the pool without even negotiating about it, just pool-wet kisses, quick and clumsy and crammed full of all the words they can’t figure out how to say. _Missed you, whoever you are._ Louis feels the insane desire to giggle, holds it in.

Louis starts pulling himself onto the cement border because he’s fine at floating on his back and he’s fine at the doggy-paddle, but he’s man enough to admit that he’s neither tall nor dextrous enough to snog Harry the way he wants and stay breathing while chest-deep in water. Harry takes his upper arms and lifts him far too easily, and Louis must make a face at him because he smiles again.

“Hi,” Harry says. He’s got his elbows braced on the cement, which can’t be good for them, and he’s all curves and lines and muscle, unreal. Louis can’t even tell if Bruno Mars is still playing and honestly, _that_ is impressive. He feels like he must be a mess in contrast, flopping wet hair around his forehead and a long awkward shirt clinging around his body, slipping off his shoulder, but he wraps his thighs around Harry’s waist.  

Harry kisses him back. He’s moving slower, now, and Louis is conscious of the slick way that Harry’s waist slides along his inner thigh, even through his shorts. He’s so stupidly fit, undoubtedly has a trainer, probably he has a couple. Louis is briefly overwhelmed by the sheer thought of the infrastructure of Harry’s unreal life. He grapples into Harry’s skin and pulls him closer, tighter. This is Louis’ life now, learning the nuance of Harry's teeth and tongue and hotels like palaces and trying to suck every molecule of Harry’s breath out from his lungs.

“Do you feel safe?” Harry whispers. Louis is going to _die_.

He catches Harry’s mouth again instead of responding, catches the line of his neck in his hands. It’s a rush, the scrape of the wet cold pool ground, the scrape of Harry’s teeth not-so-gentle on his lips. Louis shivers, the smallest shiver running through the core of his shaky body. It’s not nearly enough for Harry to notice, but Harry gentles. He presses his lips against Louis’ mouth like a question, steadies him with a hand around his lower back. 

“Answer me?” Harry says. He slips his hand from Louis’ back to the corner of his thigh where it meets the rest of his body, drags across the thick swimsuit on his legs. His eyelashes are wet, make stars around his clear eyes, and Louis is hard and aching and only just managing to keep himself from bucking up against Harry, or possibly flinging himself into the pool water. Either way, he’s drowning.

“Just cold. Thought you had a stupidly fancy hotel room,” Louis whispers back.

Harry kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and he slips his hand to the front and presses his palm into Louis’ thick erection and it's, oh, it's good, but it's also a sudden thrum of panic and adrenaline, a wrong note. Louis thinks Harry might feel it in the sudden rigidity of his jaw. Harry doesn't stop kissing him but he doesn't go further. He skates back around to Louis’ ass, then down to hook the bend of his knee.

Harry holds Louis’ thighs tight where they’d been pressed up against his sides, and he pulls them both upright and carries Louis straight out of the pool and out the gate. 

“What the fuck,” Louis says. Harry snorts. 

“I was in a movie, I had to lift a lot of weights for that,” he says, with a great deal of smugness. Louis bites his ear.

“Not a pastry,” he says sadly, when Harry yelps.

 

***

  
Getting to the room takes effort because they keep kissing, which is miles better than talking, Louis thinks, unless it’s talking about the things he hates while Harry listens politely, which he also loves, but right now he wouldn’t take anything over this, Harry hooking his hand on Louis’ hips in the elevator and the two of them leaving wet marks in the carpet and up against the mirrors.

They get into the room somehow. Harry moves his hands from Louis’ ass to the hem of his wet shirt and Louis flinches away. They stare at each other.

“I'm sorry,” Louis says, going instantly hot in the wrong way, ashamed. 

“Louis, no,” Harry says. He's tender again, his voice like the strum of guitar strings. “Are you ok? We don’t--”

Louis closes his eyes, but not for long. He opens them again, finds Harry’s.

“I want you,” Louis says, and it’s enough, maybe, because Harry nods.

“However you like it. Whatever you need,” Harry says, and there’s a question in it, Louis knows there is.  

Louis pulls his awareness to the moment, like he does when it comes over him in a crowd, like he does when somebody brushes close to his back and his heart starts pounding. There’s a spreading damp from the back of his shirt, and the hotel carpet thick under his bare feet. Harry’s inches away but not touching, feeling warm despite being just out of the water. He smells of chlorine and the last traces of his cologne, and he makes Louis feel shivers, bad and good and overwhelming and everything, everything.

He’s made Harry push for this the whole time but now there’s no pushing, Harry’s just waiting, all of his body language cautious. Louis thinks about the way Harry looked at him in the backstage the night they met, like he was nervous too. How he has an alert on his phone for every stupid thing that Louis spouts off, even if he just knows that Louis is going to use it to insult him, until Louis forgets to insult him, and then they’re just talking, again and again and again, words flowing over each other.

Louis tilts forward and catches Harry by his bare arms, pulls him in. He kisses Harry, taking over the kiss, Harry’s lower lip plush and lovely between his. Harry has goosebumps from the cold, or from the waiting. Louis steps even closer. Their knees hit together, Harry shuffling on his unsteady feet, but Louis holds him tight and secure. 

“It’s not you,” Louis whispers, against Harry’s face. It’s important that Harry knows _that_. Louis has his hand fisted in the back of Harry’s hair and he doesn’t remember doing that, but he can’t let go. He’s shaking again, he hates the raw edge that this is bringing out of him, the cracks in his facade, but he still doesn’t let go.  

Harry pulls his arms out of Louis’ hold. There’s an instant where Louis thinks _ah, here it is_ with a sense of woeful resignation, but Harry wraps Louis up so tight that Louis feels held together by it.  

They’re a sticky damp mess but it doesn’t bother Louis. So many things don’t bother him, actually: water and sticky things, dirt and grime, atonal noises and experimental music that sounds like whales or out-of-tune musical arts majors trying to sound like whales. Louis has a high tolerance for uncomfortable sounds, a curiosity for them that runs deep. 

“What is it, then,” Harry says, and the slow way he says it and the deep way he squeezes Louis, like it’s unconscious, makes Louis feel brave. 

“Maybe just, just let me face you,” Louis whispers. “I just don't like people looking at my back.” 

“I won't,” Harry says. “I won't even be able to look away from those pretty eyes.” 

Louis rolls them, just because he can, and Harry smiles again, which makes everything feel a little less weighted and a little more fine. Louis takes in a deep breath. 

“Can we just, just focus on you? Is that ok? Can I just touch you?”

“Yeah, we can,” Harry says immediately. His hand has come up to cup Louis’ cheek, long fingers and heavy rings, warm metal. “And we don't have to do that, either." 

“I want to, you have to know how badly I want you,” Louis says, god, he's an endless canyon of want, Harry doesn't even know. He's just all that and he's also this, the pounding on his head that might be too much if Harry turns it back on him.

“No, well, maybe a little,” Harry says. Louis feels him shift, feels Harry's thick strong thigh and barely stifles a truly embarrassing whine. 

“But I don't, really, know what you want.”

“I want you to listen to the music I tell you to listen to,” Louis says, getting his hands around Harry's biceps, at least as much as they can manage, kissing under Harry's jaw. Harry moves with it. They stumble as Louis pushes them back.

“I can't stop, actually, since you said my words it's like, I just hear your loud raspy voice complaining in my head, over and over,” Harry says.

Louis gets them to the bed. He runs his hands up Harry's stomach and Harry looks at him. 

“I want so many things, I miss it,” Louis says, incoherent and afraid that Harry will stop them, will stop this, now that it’s becoming so obvious how weird Louis is, how every step of the way, they might dislodge a piece inside of him that will shut it all down.  

“Just do what you want, then, one thing at a time,” Harry says. Harry kisses him again, and it's wet and too eager to be precise, and Louis doesn't worry quite as much.

“I can get it for you. You can have whatever you want,” Harry says. Which is such a rockstar thing to say that Louis laughs, and uses the way it distract Harry to shove him flat into his back.

He crawls over Harry on the bed, _finally,_ the solid long stretch of Harry’s body so wonderful. Louis drips water all over him, watches Harry’s ab muscles flinch. Harry spreads his arms wide and just beams up at him. He’s bold and he says whatever he wants and he’s got tattoos everywhere, he grew up under a million eyeballs and he’s still just himself, all the time, just trying so hard to put on a good show for the love of it all.  

“Harry Fucking Styles,” Louis says, “What were the odds?” 

Harry kisses the end of his nose, rubs his cheek on the side of Louis’ face. This tenderness is so honest. He’s a whirlwind of gentle and harsh, bruising Louis just the way he wants. Louis undoes the velcro of his shorts. 

“What do you want? What can I give you?” Harry says, “How can I be good for you?”

There’s pleading behind his eyes. Louis licks his lips, caught on the sudden revelation. Maybe he has more power here than he realized. That’s been the pattern, hasn’t it? He’s breathless on it, so it’s hard to speak, but he gets it out. 

“You _are_ good,” Louis says, stroking Harry’s ribcage, finding a ticklish spot. Harry leans into his touch, twitching, and there’s an undeniable flush up his neck. Louis could get lost just here, in mere inches of his body. “That’s what you need to hear, isn’t it, rockstar,” Louis says, pushing Harry down, sinking him into the bed.

Harry lets him, eyes fluttering shut, mouth fluttering open. This feels different. He goes pliant and warm and it’s utterly intoxicating. Louis bites his own tongue, extremely pleased.

“Need everybody to love you, praise you, tell you how _good_ you are,” Louis says, finding a teasing tilt, a pleasing melody. Harry huffs in a perfect noise that Louis is going to seal up in his memory, wanting and embarrassed. He climbs over Harry's thighs to straddle him. There’s a friction from his clothes and he’s still a sopping mess of poolwater, but Harry still moves against him, graceful as long as he’s not standing on his own feet in danger of tumbling them both over.

“Oh, you do,” Louis says.

“Fuck you,” Harry gasps. But Louis has his hand down Harry’s half-open swim trunks and his palm on Harry’s cock and there’s absolutely no lying in this situation. Harry’s rock hard and his eyes are blown. Louis kisses him, ferociously, bites around his mouth and swallows up the gasp that Harry makes. 

“No, gonna fuck _you,_ sweetheart, good little rockstar,” Louis says. Harry moans like it's ripped out of him, closes his eyes.

“Louis,” he says, hips jerking.

“Have you got stuff?” Louis asks, thankful that Harry’s eyes are still closed so that _he_ can’t see the way _Louis_ is flushing, tremors in his fingers and mouth. He can keep himself level focusing on Harry, but just barely.

“Sure, the hotel stocks a different lube in every drawer,” Harry says.

Louis gapes around the room, and Harry _laughs at him._

“Oh, you’re despicable,” Louis spits, Harry shaking with laughter underneath him, a gorgeous cascade of absurd giggles. Harry sits up, forcing Louis into his lap, kissing him again. There’s really too much of this, Louis’ lips are getting chapped and swollen but he can't stop, can't, can't.

“In my own bag,” Harry says, pulling Louis’ ear, and seriously no one should look this relaxed and happy with open shorts, cock half-out in someone else’s hand. Harry Fucking Styles. 

“Christ,” Louis grumbles, leaving Harry on the bed with another push and calculatedly swiping his soggy shirt hem along Harry’s face. 

Harry’s got a nondescript brown leather carry-on. Louis finds lube quickly in a toiletries bag, along with some well-worn clothes that don’t look designer at all--old pajamas, a sweatshirt, a sketchbook, a bag that looks full of forty different rings. This hotel suite has three or four rooms and two closets full of clothes, and this bag is clearly the only piece that Harry brings himself. It makes Louis’ heart clench. He’s in so fucking deep, and he doesn’t have any idea when and where it happened, if it was in too-long phone calls or too-big arenas or here and now, seeing into this quiet part of Harry’s life and wanting to protect it.

Harry’s waiting on the bed, _so good._ Louis straddles him again and he thinks he’s warm enough that his soggy clothes won’t matter, so he folds over Harry and kisses his face, gets ahold of his cock in slicked fingers.

“Hi,” Harry says, a little helpless, heavy-lidded and already panting. He is, of course, unreserved and honest, determinedly honest. Louis licks his cheek and tastes chlorine and makes Harry squirm.

“I've got you, you worked so hard, you did so well,” Louis says. Harry's flushed a rich red up his cheeks that seems half embarrassment and half lust and he's beautiful, so raw even under Louis’ clumsy words and re-learning touch.

“Ugh,” Harry manages, and Louis bites him again, slides his teeth sparingly down Harry’s irregular stubble.

“Really,” he says, “Actually. I’ve really liked your shows.” Harry arches into his hand, just so very lovely, and Louis squeezes his wrists.

Louis strokes him, thumbs over the tip of his hard cock, experiments with pressure. Harry's leaking into his fingers already, his stomach trembling. He looks so unguarded, lips thick and kiss-bruised. Louis nudges Harry's arms together at his chest and holds them in his other hand, bites at Harry's mouth and neck. He wonders how much Harry ever gets this kind of focus on _him,_ gets to be soft and shy, if everyone seems convinced that Harry’s some kind of demigod. Louis knows better. Louis knows that Harry’s _better_ than that story.

Louis can hear him getting close so he stops, and Harry makes a needy whine of protest. Louis brushes his hand over Harry’s body and finds a nipple and twists it. 

“God, you’re mean,” Harry says, tiny and sweet, Louis kisses him again.

“Shut up, be good,” Louis says, and they’re both smiling against each other, batting jokes that hurt no one. Louis runs his hand back down Harry's cock, up the jut of his beautiful hipbone. “I’m telling you you’re good. Like you want me to. You want it so much.”

“Please,” Harry says. He’s bucking into Louis’ light touch now, so desperate. Louis is going to sink through the mattress, through the floor. He gets a solid grip on Harry’s cock again and Harry trembles with it, hooks a bent leg around Louis’ calf from behind like he’s both hopelessly turned on and hopelessly cuddly. Louis doesn’t usually like this feeling, limbs pulling and tangled, but he _does_ like this and he wonders how Harry turns everything upside down.

“I’m going to tell you another secret,” Louis says, his voice rasping over the words. Harry is panting into his mouth, their faces close, his eyes fluttering open to rake over Louis’ face, and then closed like it’s too much to take in all at once.

“Talk to me,” Harry says, breathy and destroyed and so, so close. Louis licks his lips, runs his tongue over his teeth, feels an ache in his thigh muscles where he’s been braced over Harry, and a thin pain from his wrist, hooked at a strange angle. He’d stay like this forever, forever.

“I thought your album was really brave,” Louis says. And he’s never felt more powerful in his life because Harry loses it, moans down every inch of his arena-filling throat, and comes all over Louis’ fingers, up his stomach, plastering across their thighs.

“As the resident authority in this room, I give that a five star review,” Louis says. Harry hits him in the face with a pillow.

 

***

 

Harry cuddles beautifully. Louis feels like he can get used to this Harry, arm thrown over his face to shield it from the lamp, turned on his side. Louis strokes his pool-damp hair away from his face and Harry smiles, eyes still closed.

“There’s another room. Key’s on the table. But I’d love it if you stayed with me tonight, like this,” Harry says.

“What did we decide about you and that word?” Louis sighs. “Mind if I take a shower?”

“You’re so sweet,” Harry says, even though Louis is pretty dead certain he’s anything but. “No one asks if they’re allowed to use the shower in this situation.”

“Well then, mind if I steal some clothes?” Louis asks. He's brought plenty of his own but he finds it's usually best to give into this kind of kitten-claw drag under his skin, only satisfied with the _right_ thing against it. 

“I knew there’d be a catch,” Harry sighs.

Harry cracks his eyes open when Louis gets up and pokes tentatively around Harry’s gigantic hotel room. There’s a closet full of clothes some assistant carried in here. Far too many sequins and satins. Louis makes a happy noise when he finds a pile of butter soft t-shirts in a pile in a drawer. They'll be big on him, which is great. 

“God, you’re cute,” Harry says. Louis finds a slipper in the closet and throws it at Harry.

“Stop it,” he mutters, darkly.

“Never,” Harry says, into the pillow.

Harry doesn’t even twitch toward getting out of bed. Louis feels half-relieved and half-disappointed; he might, with a great deal of snogging, consider letting Harry shower with him, provided that he could face Harry the whole time. Then again he might not, and it’s a moot point with Harry’s eyes sinking shut and his face smushing into the endlessly soft bed, the bare skin of his back still flushed pink.

Showers have always helped. Louis doesn't feel a compulsion around cleanliness but it _helps._ It's kind of a reset, kind of a settling when things are feeling complicated, and fragile.

When Louis gets back into the bed he thinks Harry’s fast asleep, but Harry grapples for him with loose, clumsy hands. Harry’s comfortably naked and a bit filthy and Louis is in Harry’s unfamiliar clothes but there’s something perfect about it, textile-skin contrast bundling him into a drowsy peace.

Harry is closer to sleep than waking. He surprises Louis by tucking Louis into his chest and slipping his arm under Louis’ shirt, resting flush against his back. Harry's too asleep to see Louis’ face, twisting around with how very much he's wanted this, how long it's been since he's felt held.

Louis can feel his own heartbeat under the stretch of the borrowed shirt, pinning Harry’s arm to places nobody goes. He doesn’t even mind.

 

***

 

“Don't you have a whole britpop new wave production to get ready for? I feel like I remember that you do something like that for work,” Louis says.

Harry is scanning the menu with concentration. They’re at a tiny lovely hole in the wall and there are literally only three possible brunch items, but Harry still needs to ponder.

“That's tomorrow,” Harry says. 

“I'm sorry? Surely I misheard you. You mumble, by the way, you should get some voice lessons, learn to be a professional with your vocal chords someday.”

“My show’s not until tomorrow,” Harry says, with the serenity of a man who has considered every implication of choosing eggs and stands by his decision.

“Thought we could see the D’Orsay, I really liked that the one time. It might rain, but there's a lovely walk to Marlotti’s and a market in that neighborhood today, too. Buy you one of every pastry we see.”

“I have deadlines,” Louis says, although he actually doesn't. “I don't have anywhere to stay. You said your show was tonight.”

“You have some pretty posh hotel rooms to stay at,” Harry smirks. Louis stares at him.

“You _liar,”_ he says. Harry is back to examining the menu again, rubbing his chin like that's going to fool Louis into believing he's innocently debating between the two possible coffee options.

 

***

 

“Nobody's recognized me yet,” Harry says, sounding pleased. They’re standing on a fantastic bridge and the weather cleared overnight, so it’s brilliant, sunny and warm. Louis is chewing his lower lip in his teeth, which he’s going to regret, given how banged-up they still are from all the snogging and, if this morning is anything to judge by, all the snogging to come.

“Maybe you’re not actually that famous,” Louis says. “Washed up, probably. A flicker of splendor in your youth but soon, a Vegas residency and your only reviews from BuzzFeed _, twenty people who made us feel things in the mid-noughts.”_

“I’m so excited, that's my dream. I've already arranged a collab with Cirque du Soleil and I'll take you to hang out with Britney,” Harry says.

“Could you really?” Louis asks. 

“Thought you didn't want to be bought?” Harry says snidely.

“I've got principles but I'm still _gay,”_ Louis huffs. It’s _Britney,_ for chrissakes.

“I really will. But I'm plenty famous, I saw my own face on two magazines on this walk,” Harry says. He's about to say something else, probably about how great he is, when Louis interrupts him. 

“I don’t like giving blowjobs,” Louis says, staring resolutely into the middle distance. “It’s a thing, for me. It’s a thing I don’t like. It’s like, I know it’s this big deal, especially with guys, and I’ve always hated it. I have a really strong gag reflex, I don’t know. I like being able to see what’s going on, and like that, I’ve always felt, I’ve always hated it. It feels like drowning, or something.” 

Harry, who is a rockstar for all that he’s wearing a beanie with a hole in it and his shower-fresh hair looking on the wrong side of not brushed, moves closer on the railing of the bridge. When Louis doesn’t move away, he nudges Louis’ elbow with his.

“Yeah?” he asks. Louis doesn’t look at him. He looks at the water, the old stones and well-worn paths by it. Louis has been to Paris three times besides this and he’s always liked it best at night, when the grime fades into the classic dark blue shadows and the yellows of all the old, energy-inefficient lights.

“Yeah,” Louis says softly. “So I think I might, always not like it. I’m never gonna like it.” 

The breeze has kicked up, throwing small white peaks into the river.

“I appreciate you telling me. That's not a thing I care about,” Harry says. Harry wraps his arm around Louis, tucks him into his side. Louis breathes absolutely normally, steady in, steady out. 

“You like this, yeah?” Harry asks. His breath is close enough for Louis to catch it, coffee and Harry. Harry, who has probably had about thirty marriage proposals a day since he turned eighteen. Who has a hell of a lot of different kinds of proposals. 

“A lot,” Louis admits. “I like being close. I fucking love it. ” 

Harry makes a considering, agreeing noise. 

“Do you like _getting_ blowjobs?” Harry asks. 

“Oooooooh, my god,” Louis says, pulling out of Harry's grasp to dance a foot away. “That's your boyband lack of filter, go text one of your bandmates, go text Zayn about this, don’t talk to me.” 

“You _do,”_ Harry says, his eyes sparkling, an elfish grin on his face.

“Shut up, put your tongue back in your mouth, come back when you've seen Norma at the MET and we have something to talk about,” Louis spits, rapid fire. 

“Wow, like I didn't read that blogpost too, weak counter, London,” Harry says. He wraps Louis up in an encompassing hug and Louis sighs. He gingerly rubs his cheek against Harry’s soft shirt.

“This is all good stuff, none of this is anything wrong, all of this will work with us, if you want any of that, with us,” Harry says.

“There are a lot of stupid things about my body, imperfect things, I just, you’re, you live in another world, you probably wouldn’t understand,” Louis says, now that his face is hidden. “I just thought maybe you should know. Transparency. I don't have to stay another night, you know.”

“That stuff you said to me last night,” Harry says, and Louis can practically feel Harry’s bodyheat rise even through their clothes, embarrassment tracing up his chest the way that Louis now knows about. Harry sounds determined too.

“I like that a lot, wow. I’ve never really told anyone about it. Being praised, and all, huge thing for it.”

“Hah,” Louis says, but it’s not unkind, it’s just a little puff of a noise, as incredulous as it is mocking. Holding onto Harry’s fingers where they’re edging around his hip, he leans into Harry’s hold. Louis remembers Mira in the backstage room, Harry asleep in her lap, the way that Harry’s friends always flank him, out on the street, surrounded by photographers, surrounded at parties. _He’s shy, you know._  

“I loved it. It’s hot,” Louis says. “I thought you were so good,” he adds, smirking just to make Harry shift precariously from one foot to the other.

“I want to know the things about your body, but I don’t believe that makes anything imperfect,” Harry says, sounding sure again.

“It's not like, a list I can keep in my head,” Louis says. “It's just that there are some things that take me a long time to feel safe about. Even things that I really want. It surprises me as much as anyone, it's a stupid mess. Ok, I'm done talking, don't say anything about it.”

He feels a little shaky but it’s actually Harry this time. He turns Louis back to face the river and scoots his arm back around Louis. Louis lets himself settle against Harry. Paradoxically, what he feels is _peacefulness,_ quiet underneath all the flickering panic of revealing so much to someone who has such a hold on him. To someone who actually maybe has a _claim_ on him.

“I’ve been to Paris so many times, but I’ve never gotten to just walk around,” Harry says. He’s got his chin on the top edge of Louis’ head now, and Louis has to close his eyes, because he likes it so, so much, and he’s pretty sure that if Harry pushes at it, if Harry catches the edge of the swirling galaxy of want inside of him, he’ll shatter like so much glass.

“Touring can be really lonely. I’ve never like, wandered around and taken pictures on my phone with someone, you know? I mean I think did a photoshoot here and I don't even have any selfies from any of those trips. Let’s just go wherever we want to go today, you know?”

“I like Shakespeare and Company,” Louis says, “It’s so cliche, I know it is, Niall gives me a really hard time about it.” 

“What even is that?” Harry asks.

“Oh my god, Sylvia Beach?” Louis prompts. Harry leans out of their hold enough to make a face, twists his mouth and wrinkles his nose in ignorance. Louis throws his hands up. It’s not even a dramatic enough reaction for this so he does it a second time, putting them way over his head. 

“Are you chastising me or cheering?” Harry asks. 

“I don’t know,” Louis wails. He’s already pushing Harry toward the left bank, green awnings, tourists everywhere. There's a good chance Harry will be recognized but Louis suddenly, wildly doesn't care about anything but the two of them. _You like this, yeah?_ Today has already been a magic day, an alternate universe, soulmate leap day left off all the calendars.  

“You’re a disgrace but, I like showing people things they’ve never seen.”

“Ah,” Harry says, and he’s smiling and looking at Louis, and tripping over his own feet because of it.

 

***

 

 _“Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise,”_ Harry reads from the inscription in the reading library. He’s got Louis’ hand tangled up in his own and it’s desperately annoying because Louis is trying to balance five different critical theory books under his other armpit.

“Angels in disguise,” Harry repeats, waggling his eyebrows at Louis. 

“Oh, fucking shut up,” Louis says. He’s pink all over, and he’d pinch Harry, but he hasn’t got a hand free.

Harry isn't recognized once. Miracles upon miracles.

 

***

 

Louis has never been stupid and he’s rarely out of control but, but.

But sometimes even the quickness of your own mind isn’t enough for stupid things around it. Even the happiness of the loveliest day can come down around your ears if certain pillars are pulled away.

For instance: a very late night and not enough sleep, a long day of walking unfamiliar streets, then three strangers pulling at your sleeve in order to get around you, to get to your very famous soulmate and ask for an autograph in the lobby of a hotel, and you're reduced to a panic, to the pressing fear of a million unknown faces. 

Louis makes it up to the top floor where Harry’s ridiculous room is before he realizes that without Harry, he doesn’t even have a key. Harry is, of course, in the lobby being gracious and kind with strangers, and Louis is up here without even quite realizing how he got here, hands shaking, mind a shear of white noise. He'd just bolted away, straight into an elevator without saying a word. 

If he were home, he’d fill it with sound. _They didn’t even touch you,_ he tells himself, _they didn’t know about the picture, they didn’t anything._ Just a couple of nice kids who wanted Harry’s autograph.  

He’s shaking a lot, too much to stand, so he sits down on the floor. He’s going to be able to stand again, in a second, and then he’ll call the hotel and they’ll come open the room and he’ll get his bag and everything is _fine,_ everything will be _fine._  

“London,” Harry says, sinking down in front of him, hands outstretched but not touching. 

“I’m fine,” Louis says. His face is on his knees so he can’t tell how Harry’s reacting.

“Ok,” Harry says, “Want to come into the room?”

“Sure,” Louis says, not moving. Harry puts his hands on Louis’ knees, but he doesn’t try to move him to get him to raise his head. Louis is a collection of carpet fibers, he’s a still pool under lights, he’s way too many pastries stacked into the shape of a human.

“You’re safe,” Harry says. They’re just words, but somehow, they make Louis into a human again.

 

***

 

“I had an idea for something we could do tonight,” Harry says, after Louis has found a new place to sit with his back up against the wall inside the hotel room, and it’s clear that Louis isn’t willing to say anything about his panic.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, “I’m sorry. I can’t, I can’t like, be on a date tonight. I’m sorry.”

“The fame’s tough, it can be tough, _I’m_ the one who’s sorry,” Harry says. “I don’t need or want anything from you.”  

“What kind of idea?” Louis asks, knees up to his chest, looking small, he knows. Harry smiles at him.

“Trust me,” he says. Who wouldn’t? 

Harry pulls something out of his personal bag. It’s a thick black marker. Harry uncaps the marker and looks down at his own forearm, considering. He’s got a row of tattoos, but there’s still blank space between them for the golden skin. Harry writes something on his arm, quick and smooth. 

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, softly. Harry holds out his arm. He’s written words on it. _Trust me._  

“I thought we could pick our own words, now that we know each other better. Like, it obviously wasn’t perfect, having to deal with that stupid mark. I wish I could change it, but I can’t. But, we could try some new ones,” Harry says. 

Louis watches Harry move closer, watches him put the marker between his teeth, freeing his hands. Harry is completely ridiculous. He’s close, on the floor, and he puts both hands on either side of Louis’ hips. 

He crawls his fingers up to the hem of Louis’ shirt and waits, looking at Louis from under his long eyebrows, waiting for permission. He’s not going to take the shirt off, Louis knows. 

Louis still feels shaky, but he nods. 

Harry plucks the shirt up, just a few inches, revealing the bare skin of Louis’ stomach, a soft curve over organs and bone. He takes the marker from his teeth and draws. Louis holds his breath until the line is finished, the marker tip cold and wet and slick on the warm skin. Harry drags his thumb against Louis when he finishes. 

It's a heart, lopsided on the right side of Louis’ bellybutton. As ever, Harry shows all his cards at once. 

“Ok?” Harry asks. 

“Really ok,” Louis says. Harry gives him a look that's so full of pleasure and so bright, Louis can't believe he's not doing anything more than poring over an inch of Louis’ body, still framed in all his clothes. 

“Now you,” Harry says, sitting back on his heels. He sounds hoarser than before. Louis feels like he’s only breathing with the top half of his lungs. Harry hands him the marker and before Louis can even uncap it, Harry’s pulled off his shirt completely. 

He hasn't yet let himself look closely before, really seen his own words. He was too distracted by the heat of previous moments and too overwhelmed at all the celebrity shots, that different Harry in the press. 

Harry’s soulmark is in its own circle of skin, surrounded by carefully planned tattoos, right over his heart. It's distinctively Louis’ handwriting, down to the _s_ with a cramped top curve, jilting its intended arc.  

“Fond of making your own marks, aren’t you,” Louis says, spreading his hand on Harry’s chest, littered with the ink of normal tattoos. The touch is grounding, eases the lower brain panicked residue from the lobby. 

 _sick show love_  

“Can always use more, sometimes I let other people pick them,” Harry says. He’s smiling at Louis, calm in a way that Louis envies. Still, there’s something about it that feels contagious, and he smiles back. 

“God, I should have said something more unique,” Louis says, “Something inspirational about music.”

Harry laughs, runs his hand up to tap the mark. It looks like a familiar gesture, like a long habit, a reverent reach to a religious icon.

“It was inspirational anyway,” he says. There’s a symmetrical blank space on the right side of Harry’s chest, a notable absence of any other cheeky tattoos. Louis has to look away from it all, too much, too real.

“Turn around,” he says firmly. Harry’s back is easier to handle, a blank canvas. 

 _I like the way you dance._ Louis writes it bigger, bolder, looping on Harry’s side and making him laugh because he’s ticklish. Louis stores that away, a tiny detail that a million fans might not know, the precise rib on which a marker tip makes Harry Styles laugh. Sometimes he thinks he's making Harry real out of a library of secret details, each one another page in a complicated score. 

“Hah,” Harry snorts, when he puzzles it out in the mirror. “Halfway through our first tour, with the band, you know, they were still pressuring us to dance and we all just, decided to flail around on stage. Mess with them, make fun of what we couldn’t do. I’ve always enjoyed that.” 

Harry pulls Louis’ shirt collar down where it’s already slipping off his shoulder and traces the marker there, on the round. _your friends are smart._  

Louis wonders if Harry had been a little more ordinary, how it could have gone down. They could have met in Niall’s kitchen, at a movie night, out at a London pub. 

Harry’s not ordinary, and Louis doesn’t want him to be different, but Louis doesn’t know if he can be different either. So the next thing he writes is, _I'm afraid of how much it means to me._  

It’s long so it goes on Harry's leg, starts on his calf and goes up to his inner thigh. Louis doesn't think until he's finished about whether Harry wouldn't want weird marker in a place less easily hidden from paps and fans and he falters at the end, streaking the _me._  

“I know, I really know,” Harry says. “Talking to you is what makes _me_ feel safe. I felt crazy after we met and I had to go to bed over and over again without hearing your voice.” 

He wrinkles his nose at Louis in a half-frown, half-smile, tapping the marker on his hands. His fingers, long and lovely, have black marks on the knuckles. “Don’t mean to say, there’s still another room if you like,” 

“Can I stay in here, sleep over? Just sleep?” Louis asks. He closes his eyes, because he’s a coward, because he can imagine the first shimmering blurs of doubt in Harry’s face about how much Louis isn’t ready for. 

“That sounds great,” Harry says.

 

***

 

Louis sits backstage and Harry kisses him deep and fierce before the show. Harry's already strapped up with electronics and he's got stuff in his hair and about a million important things to do, but he just comes over to the box they've set Louis up on and leans in and kisses him around all of it. There's some kind of cord digging into his chest, wires down the back of his neck for god knows what. 

He kisses deep into Louis’ mouth, a gentle hint of tongue and a not-so-gentle bite around his lips. It's dizzyingly sexy, the way he just takes it and the way he ignores everybody else including about ten frazzled show coordinators to do it. But Louis also notices that he places his hands only just on the edge of Louis’ knees, chaste and careful as anything, lighter than air. 

“Better be a sick show or you'll find me in the Chunnel,” Louis says, breathless, and those dimples are for _him._  

Zayn and Mira both seek him out for happy good luck fist bumps on their way to the stage. 

It's the best time he's ever had watching an arena concert. Louis feels content, safe, part of the show and removed from it. It turns out the place he's always wanted to be is here.

When Harry yells it, the whole crowd yells his own part back at him. And so does Louis.

_sick show love!_

 

***

 

Harry’s gotten Louis some fancy car and there’s even a bodyguard, or something, to take him from the arena to the airport. Harry wraps him into a tight hug and Louis runs through and discards things that he could say, like, _this was the best date-slash-kidnapping of my life,_ or _fix the balance on Mira for the next show_ or _don’t forget me even if I’m a crap soulmate._

“What a noisy crowd tonight,” he says, with his face in Harry’s chest. Harry smells like Harry and concert, Louis wants to lick it, because he’s possessed.

“They do scream a lot,” Harry says, sounds apologetic. Neither of them seem to know how to say goodbye, given that last time it was just a fight, and Louis doesn’t actually feel like fighting, for once. 

“As they should, stodgy audience silence is classical snobbery, like none of us are supposed to express any pleasure in music, just sit there in a mass anal retention,” Louis says. There’s a beat where he realizes what he said, and then Harry’s laughing, great big horse-laughs.

Louis grins, fiercely. It was sort of fun being mean at Harry but it’s loads more fun being mean at other things, _with_ Harry.  

“You’re just the best,” Harry snorts, in between laughs, he’s still laughing. Louis should probably dismiss it, just a stupid crack, really, and Harry’s easy to crack up, he’s not used to people being brash and irreverent around him. But for some reason, he doesn’t. He bats Harry on the shoulder.

“It’s true,” he says, and they just smile at each other like a couple of dorks.  

 

***

 

 _you like being touched, but only when you feel safe_ , _am i right,_ Harry texts.

 

Louis, only half-awake after a far too late flight with a shitty airport coffee in his hand, is not really ready for this.

 _are you drunk again??? are we ever going to learn to do this without being drunk???_ Louis writes back.

 

 _i'm drunk on life, and don't try to use your stupid secret soulmate powers on me,_ Harry texts, which makes no bloody sense at all because if anyone has soulmate powers, he's the one.  _stopppp evading. you like it so much. you like it when you drive me crazy, until i pin you down so you can finally believe i'm really here_

 

It's sunny in London, today. Louis threw on an old shirt without thinking about it, and a denim jacket that he likes because of the color, not the texture, for once.

 

 _you'll fight me because you're good at it and we both like it,_ Harry texts again.

_but i can touch it out of you. just miss your mouth and tongue and eyes and fingers and thighs and skin skin skin on me_

_want to be so gentle with you once you believe me_

 

Louis is going to die and there isn't even a silent jail to send Harry to, for it.

 _oh my god i can't do this on the tube ok i really do, i want it,_ Louis admits. He's a body that's still a body that wants things.

 _fuck this,_ he writes, for good measure.  

 

 _just checking._ Harry says. Louis can see the smug look in his eyes perfectly, so maybe he does have some soulmate powers after all.

 

***

 

There's no exact science to soulmarks. Naturally, there are centuries of superstition and belief. In another era your words might have been used to indicate personality traits, scope the size of your brain, or even determine your educational prospects.    

It’s the first thing that they say to you, and it’s probably no more and no less, but people can’t help but try to interpret them. It's like reading tea leaves, astrology, dreams. 

For instance: Louis’ mark is dark and bold and unusually large. It lands where he can't even see it, scrawled across his back. There's no exact science. It’s still as uncontainable as being famous at sixteen, flash bulb cameras, people you don’t know always talking about _you._  

For instance: Harry's mark is soft and curved and relatively small. It lands where he can always see it, right over his heart. There's no exact science. It’s still as tender as a ballad in a hushed arena, a single spotlight and an acoustic guitar, someone who is only sweet with _you._

 

***

 

Harry goes on some awful tour leg and the music world can’t keep turning without Louis’ loud opinions about it every week, so Louis is in London moping through a rainy week and Harry is in France or Spain or _somewhere that isn’t here._  

He’s making Louis laugh over text, and he’s still saying _good evening_ every night in every show. Louis is admittedly not an expert in the post-intimacy behaviors of maybe soulmates, but Louis thinks this is a good sign.  

But there are big empty spaces, spaces where Louis can feel his heart racing. When he closes the texts or when he stops writing in the middle of a piece or when he’s going home from a concert that isn’t Harry’s. 

Somehow he let Harry leave feeling like they'd sorted a thousand things out and now he realizes that they never defined _anything at all_ , and he's an incompetent wanker who should've never had a soulmate because he can't figure out how to tell Harry he wants to be important and special and somehow not controlled by it, besides which even if he figures out how, he's probably too afraid to say it.  

He just keeps texting Harry unsolicited Louis Tomlinson Hot Takes about strange things, Malibu country and kpop and film underscoring, and hoping they add up to a cryptic message. _You're coming back to me, aren't you?_  

After a week during which Louis tells everyone he's working from home because the level of vocabulary in the office is mushing his brain, Niall shows up at the door with a box of truffles. 

“Aw, how are you hanging in there, boo,” Niall says. “Tour life is tough on a soulmate.” 

“I hate you, you are a terror in my life, where have you been and why weren't you here sooner,” Louis says, grabbing the box out of Niall’s hands. 

“I'm like a dubstep drop at the ballet, you don't know you need it until you get it,” Niall says. “Have you been flirting with him? I know he must be flirting with you.” 

“I don't know, I went on a Spotify rampage and sent him forty links to a capella covers of boybands?” Louis stuffs a huge truffle in his mouth and makes a face because now he's got a mouth of nougat. Even chocolate has stabbed him in the back. The world is against him. 

“Now that's top shelf flirting,” Niall says. “He won't resist that. Also, he can't take his eyes off you, and he laughs at your _worst_ jokes. Don't worry.”

They eat truffles together and it helps.

 

***

 

Harry has an interview that Louis finds out about because Niall busts into their office like there's a fire.

“Have, uuh, have you been online?”

Louis unfolds his face from the desk, where it had been laying in the traditional yoga posture of writer's block, Forehead Prone Shavasana.

“I'm working, actually,” he says.

“On the LA Phil piece? Do they live in our desk?” Niall asks.

“I'm getting into the suffering, to talk about American atonal,” Louis says. Niall looks agitated, like somebody told him Ed Sheeran is quitting stadium folk.

“Don't fret, I'm sure there will be lots of schlocky anthems about anonymous loves to hold the aesthetic middle ground in your future,” Louis says, reassuringly.

“What? You never make any sense. You should probably check your Twitter,” Niall says in the same tone of voice doctors use to tell you that you're going to need to step into their office and sit down, for this one.

“That cesspool? I turned my notifications off,” Louis says. He's fighting a sick jolt of fear because, Harry has done something? Pictures coming out of a hotel room. He should've been ready for this. He's a fucking idiot. Someone who won’t make him...whatever Louis is making him do. Someone who's more complete. He should've been more ready.

He doesn't even need to go to his own Twitter, because it's trending everywhere. It's Harry on a couch and not the oily video Louis was already expecting, grainy footage from a late night club, bodies pushing into Harry, their needy hands on _his_ words.

“Louis, play it,” Niall says gently. His hand’s on Louis’ shoulder. Louis grabs Niall's hand before he clicks play and squeezes. 

“Are the rumors true?” the interview asks with a tv smile. It's an obligatory question at this point. Louis can see thoughts of lunch behind her eyes. 

“Have you found your soulmate?” 

Harry isn’t quite looking at her, leaning his arms on his knees, but his gaze is open and solid. He looks like he’s patiently answering the questions of a family friend.

“For whatever we decide that is, yes,” he says. Straightforward. Happy.

“Holy sh-” the interviewer cuts herself off, trained inhibitions rising just in time. She plasters an even bigger smile on her face. Louis only looks at her for an instant, still staring at Harry. He just looks very Harry, an almost-smile underneath his wry mouth, looking like he knows what he wants and he knows what you want.

“Who is it? Who’s the lucky soulmate of the one and only Harry Styles? You can’t leave us hanging, Harry!” she exclaims.

“No,” Harry says simply. “It’s not my place to speak for him. But I'll tell you he's incredible.”

There’s more but the clip ends there, frozen on Harry’s face, starting to grin. Louis already knows that he probably got badgered for the rest of the interview and that the entire internet is going insane at him, and Harry probably just went out for a smoothie and genially ignored all of it.

“Why is he like this,” Louis whispers.

Half the staff has crowded into their office _again._ Babs from marketing, to whom they've never spoken despite Niall's lingering crush, hands him a tea. Niall ruffles his hair.

“You tell us, he's your bloody soulmate,” Niall says.

 

***

 

Harry is back in London on a friday, and Louis throws another party because he’s never invited Harry over any other way and he has no, no, no idea what he’s doing. Louis is a fucking coward who needs to be surrounded by friends who will hug him if Harry shows up and announces that he has a new rockstar French boyfriend. 

Niall comes over an hour before the party starts with his softest sweater, the one that Louis has always coveted and sometimes stolen when he’s left it in their office, and Louis pulls it on and watches Niall chop cheese into too-large pieces and tries not to look at his phone. 

Harry shows up with a bottle of French wine and a huge smile, both of which should be taxed for the safety of citizens.

 

***

 

“Why did you write at the New Yorker for a year?” Harry asks. 

It’s a dreamy two in the morning and everyone else has gone off home and for some reason Harry Styles is still here, in Louis’ living room. Even though Louis has been neglecting him and probably disappointing him and definitely boring him. 

“Are you reading my archives? Do we need to do an intervention for you? You're gonna take my job,” Louis says. 

“I've had a lot of travel time,” Harry says.

Louis frowns at his knees. He’s been sitting cross-legged and constructing a tower out of coasters and Harry has either been asleep or watching Louis. Probably watching Louis, like the creepy stalker he is.

“I moved to New York, a few years ago. I came back,” he says.

“Yeah. That’s not an answer, that’s just repeating back what I said like it’s an answer,” Harry says. “I’ve noticed that you do that.”

“I’ve noticed that you think liking the Beatles and taking one pictures with bangs makes you sound like them,” Louis snipes, but his heart’s not in it because it’s two in the morning and Harry’s just smirking at him on the sofa. Louis successfully avoided having a real conversation all evening with Harry, Physically Present Person, but his time ran out. 

Louis wishes he were on the sofa and not on the floor because he’s cold, and Harry looks quite warm, and Louis wants to put his head down on Harry’s chest. But he won’t.

“Uh huh,” Harry says. “Why did you go to New York? You love London, London. You love London music.”

Louis does. Harry’s right about that, too. Harry’s just so _right_ about what Louis thinks and wants and it’s infuriating and it’s also, of course, exactly what Louis wants, too.

That’s why he tells the truth.

“I couldn’t write in London anymore,” Louis says. It’s softer than he means it to be. He blames two in the morning. He stacks another coaster. These ones are ceramic and they feature cats dressed up as Classical composers, so getting them to balance together is a feat.

“Why not?” Harry asks.

Louis has built a very impressive coaster tower. Louis is going to take a picture to memorialize this. He’s going to tweet it. He’s got a charter to contribute to culture, after all.

“After that photo of me? I mean, of the mark? After everyone started saying that thing at the beginning of their acts, the joke everybody had to do in London. It was too distracting. I kept thinking that was the only thing anybody thought, about anything that I wrote. Like, for a while nobody was going to read me as a critic. They were only going to read, that pathetic concert twink, going to every show in London, hoping his fucking soulmate is a rock star.” 

There are only two coasters left, and they’re going on the top. These coasters are heavy and slippery. They don’t want to hold each other up, but Louis has got them resting in a nice counterbalance. They can only stand up against each other, holding each other in place. Louis takes the last two and holds the very edges of them in his fingers, and doesn’t breath until he has it placed. It balances, because Louis is good at what he does, whether someone’s there to see it, or not. He sits back on his heels.

“I couldn’t just hear music anymore. I had to go away until it ended.”

“And you didn't want to meet your soulmate, who was going to be in London,” Harry fills in. He's leaning forward on the couch the same way Louis has seen him do in interviews, elbows on his thighs and eyes unguarded.

He doesn't look mad, not about how Louis didn’t know how to pick up where they left off in Paris, not about how Louis left him on the couch, not about how Louis spent the evening buried in a stubborn argument about Britten with Kegan, and not about this.

Louis sighs. And he says the rest. “Think it fucked me up, quite a bit. Think it goes back a lot further than the picture, but the picture going viral made it really bad for a while. I couldn't let anyone touch me for a long time. I couldn't hardly let them _look_ at me. I, I don’t know how to talk to you about this.”

His voice has gotten quieter and it ends almost too faint to hear. Harry is sitting up, and he looks so sad Louis can only glance and then has to look away, uncertain.

“And now?” Harry prompts. “It's ok. It's ok to not want things. I just...I just want to know." 

“I came back to London, didn’t I?” Louis says. Harry's face looks less sad, at that, and Louis presses a hand against his chest, rubs his palm against the fuzz of his loose blue sweatshirt.

“Now, you, it's different, I want, I wanted to think maybe there was a chance,” Louis is tripping over his own words and fuck, “I'm supposed to be good at words, but they're the worst,” he says.

“You _are_ good at words,” Harry says. “The best.” 

“Don't let Niall hear you,” Louis says in a fake, small laugh.

“Niall will understand. You're my favorite critic. You're my soulmate,” Harry says. It's so gentle. “And that only thing that ever means is what you want it to mean.”

Louis finally looks at him. “Now I want to see where it goes, with you, I want you to touch me, it's just, it doesn't magically make me any good at this. You don't have to be ok with that, I, eventually you probably _won't_ be ok with this,” he says.

Harry crawls down from the sofa and across the floor. Louis is frozen, heart frozen, lungs tight. Harry moves slowly, clearly tries to move softly, but he's incapable of being anything other than larger than life, large enough to fill an arena.

“What if you're always wrong about me the first time?” Harry says.

Louis is in an undefended position, balancing on his heels on a plush carpet, and he crashes backwards under the onslaught. But Harry’s caught him around the torso with his gangly limbs.

“A-side is the studio release, isn't it,” Louis says.

“Sometimes the B-side is even better. Sometimes they didn't get it right, didn’t know what should come first. _God Only Knows_ was B-side, _We Will Rock You_ was B-side.”

“You'd have to be a real music dork, to know that,” Louis whispers. Harry's not kissing him but it feels just as intimate, the way he runs his nose and cheek along the side of Louis’ face, the way he holds Louis without any hesitation but only around his arms and shoulders, not the tender ridge of his upper back where the mark hides.

“We're both real music dorks. What are the odds. You're good at this,” Harry says. Louis tries to prove him right, pulling him back and kissing him.

It’s so warm and so good. It whittles Louis’ attention down to the singular connection of their mouths and faces together, slow and sweet, Harry’s hand wrapping around the back of his head and then under his jaw and then back again to the back of his head, like he can’t decide how best to hold Louis, and he’s refusing to choose between a multitude of very good options.

Harry Styles, Real Person, wants everything at the same time, every option, every method, every genre, every last one of his rock and roll idols stuffed into a ten-track album that doesn’t even feel ashamed of itself.

“I don’t think any of your work is about your mark,” Harry says, stroking down Louis’ ear.

“I don’t know, it kind of might be,” Louis says, against his mouth. Harry’s breath is absurdly delicious for two in the morning. It feels like they’re having a slumber party, suddenly, like Louis is back in school swapping secrets and secret makeouts with a secret crush. The whole thing is a tremulous fiction in his living room because Louis hasn’t really been able to keep anything secret, not the jittering feelings he has for every single piece of music he’s ever heard, not the mark on his back that ties him to just this one musician, this one song.  

“So you knew your soulmate would play a show someday, so what? Why the fuck does anybody listen to music. But you didn’t just listen to songs. You became all of this.” Harry sweeps his hand vaguely around the living room, the door to the library, the carpet-and-curtain-and-wood heart of Louis’ view on the world, artists and craft and criticism and the trail of words he’s left behind himself, trying to make sense of it.

“That’s unique, and it’s about being _you,_ what you express, just like what you wrote about mark-lyricism, about me, even, when you let yourself write about my album for real for those two or three sentences in the middle of your review. People who can’t see that are idiots, not worth a second of your brain,” Harry says. He’s cheating, breaking down Louis’ ability to keep arguing with him by using Louis’ own arguments.

“I don’t know,” Louis repeats.

“I know,” Harry says. “I’m writing you some new songs.”

“Oh, god,” Louis says, “You are not the first musician in the history of the world to use that line.”

Harry grins at him, against him. None of Louis’ barbs ever seem to stick, or maybe they do, but it only succeeds in hooking them tighter, his fascination. He’s still holding Louis, tilted slightly back, just enough to feel disoriented.

“No, but I’m still doing it. Just for you. No one else will ever hear it.”

“Just, fucking, go back to kissing me,” Louis says. It’s an attempt to not get defeated, but it’s also a defeat. Harry doesn’t point it out but he does go back to kissing Louis, well and thoroughly, and that’s some consolation.

 

***

 

Louis is picking up his phone the next morning to text Harry, who’d left the previous night around three complaining about his extremely difficult life full of promo and interviews. Louis had kissed him while smacking upside the head and then not let him leave until he’d promised to come back tonight. Louis isn’t even going to throw a party to deal with it.

Niall texts when he gets the phone unlocked:

_soooo did you two sort out the next few months? you need me to run point with editorial?_

_i’ll take your side if you’re working remote you know :)_

Louis frowns at it, texts back. _I’m not going anywhere?_

  _you know Harry’s leaving, yeah?_

Louis doesn't. Didn't. Harry hadn’t said anything at all.

 _what do you mean? Louis_  texts back. 

 _I looked at the schedule so you didn't have to. He’s leaving for the states, three months,_ Niall texts.  _you didn’t talk? you didn’t know? are you ok?_

Louis is anything but ok. He’s a fucked-up sad mess of a soulmate, he’s had every chance to pick a path, to choose Harry or to push him away, and worst of all, he’d been stupid enough to think that Harry was in the same place. He considers Harry, beloved by the world and on a meteoric rise in a career that’s so far from Louis’ quiet London life it feels like a fantasy. He considers all of the halting and incomplete ways that he’s tried to tell Harry that he’s _not going to change_ and that Harry might not have seen everything in Louis’ mind, in his bed in Paris, when Louis was so shit at putting it into language. He considers all the times that Harry’s said he doesn’t _need anything,_ and the light on those words shifts, and changes.

You aren’t supposed to read into people’s words without context, aren’t supposed to let them mess with your head, but Louis has never been very good at that part of it, after all.

 _it’s over,_ Louis texts. And he turns off his phone, and takes a shower.

 

***

 

Pop and rock music has a history that no one can agree on. It’s been derided as shallow optimism, banal and easy surface hooks, but it’s not. Rock is contradiction: twentieth-century anxieties and twentieth-century optimisms, soul and blues and homemade music from people who weren’t allowed to even touch cutting-edge equipment or would’ve been laughed out of the major labels, and label scouts stealing their music right out of smoky bars and turning it into the same repeating computer track for eternity. It’s original and canned, heartfelt and heartless. And it’s not separate from the old music at all: even David Bowie went to hear Philip Glass.

 

***

 

Louis still has his phone off so when his doorbell rings late that night and he opens that door and finds Harry, looking dark and intense and impatient, he has to admit he acts a little unfair.

“You should’ve called, not just come over,” Louis says. He’s trying to sound calm because after all, Harry’s extremely lovely as a person and has been more patient than Louis deserves as a soulmate. And Louis has thought a lot about it today and has tried to do the calculations and the only thing he comes out with is that he was the one who spent all this time saying he _didn’t_ want it, so he can’t blame Harry, ultimately, for giving him what he wants.

Louis stalks back into his library and takes the needle off the record. Harry gets his graciousness but he’ll be damned if Harry will get his vinyl as a soundtrack for breaking Louis’ heart.

“I _did_ try to call, obviously, like always, but for once you didn’t answer,” Harry says, following him. “What’s going on?”

Harry’s got a guitar with him, for some stupid reason. Maybe he can’t even wait to be back on stage, playing to a million adoring fans. Louis will never be adoring. Louis is far too critical.

“Nothing,” Louis says.

“Look at me,” Harry says, “Look at me, what happened?”

“So you’re just going to leave, ok, fine, I mean, I just wish you’d told me,” Louis says, looking around the library for something to do. He doesn’t know why he came in here, he should’ve kept Harry on the doorstep. The library is the place where he spends most of his time, and he doesn’t want Harry in it.

“What?” Harry asks. Harry looks completely at home. He looks like he can reach the highest shelves that Louis has trouble reaching, sometimes.

“Hand me a musical score while you’re up there, I mean I guess if you’re gonna take advantage, I can take advantage, too.” Louis says.

“What?” Harry asks. He’s as beautiful as ever. Louis looks away.

“Just, I don’t think I can do this anymore. Cool. Glad you got it out of your system,” he’s shaking, of course, betrayed by his body like he always will be, but that doesn’t mean he has to give into it. He can feel the stutter of his middle finger against the others and the clench of the muscles down his arms. It doesn’t matter though.  

“What?” Harry asks blankly for a third time, he’s a damn parrot, honestly, you’d think someone who apparently wrote lyrics could come up with something, anything at all. “London,”--he’s tripping over the words, that mouth, Louis has been all over that mouth, it’s _his words on Harry’s chest,_ where the fuck does Harry get off, thinking he can _just leave._

“Don’t say that,” Louis says, now that’s a tear coming down his cheek. He’d worked up to something so rigid and hard and ready and it was just crumbling away.

“Why are you crying,” Harry says.

“I’m not,” Louis says. Harry’s trying to get closer and Louis is trying to avoid him and Harry won't _stop_.

Louis backs up and Harry walks forward, so they end up smashed against the wall of Louis’ tiny library. Louis wishes he were in something more intimidating than socks with smiling bowls of soup on them, he wishes he were wearing heavy black boots. He holds his hands up in useless small fists between them and Harry leans in. Harry’s got the advantage on him in his boots. There’s hardly any room in this small London flat and Louis has filled it so densely with music and papers and instruments that it feels like he’s choking, where he normally feels safest.

Harry takes Louis’ face in his hands, brushes away the wet with his thumb. Louis just keeps crying, too much to deny, now, silent tears every time he blinks.

“Talk to me,” Harry says, sounds panicked, like they haven’t done enough talking, like it isn’t all talking over and over again until Harry gets sick of him, Harry’s already gotten sick of him, and Louis is sick, too.

Louis twists his face to the side.

“Where the fuck do you get off thinking you can leave me, now that I decided I want you?” Louis whispers. Harry just stares at him, green eyes so wide and fearful they’ve almost lost their colour.

“Do you need to see the mark?” Louis says. He’s still got the frenzied tremble under his skin but he’s fully ready to do it. He’s pulling up his jumper when he feels Harry’s hands grab his wrist, tug them down.

“I don't need anything, I already know,” Harry says. The tenderness of his touch is just an insult, really. Louis tries to push out of Harry's arms, and Harry doesn't let him.

“Talk to me,” Harry says.

“Stop fucking with me,” Louis growls. 

“Never, I’ll never,” Harry says. Louis twitches in his hold. Harry tightens it, thumbs digging into Louis’ biceps.

“Come on, not this time, talk to me for real,” Harry says.

“I can't believe you'd just fucking, be like you were in Paris and come back here and act like it meant something and then leave _without even telling me_ , the least you could do is tell me, that you don’t want to do this,” Louis says. He’s overwhelmed and he’s out of bluster and opinions and the ability to classify things, he knows that he’s weird and different and everyone has always told him so but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need this, doesn’t need Harry.

Clarity dawns on Harry's stupidly handsome face. Louis contemplates grinding his heel into Harry's foot to get free, but he feels exhausted and also like nothing is going to convince Harry to let go of him, right now.

“You love New York, Niall says you miss it when things get busy here,” Harry says, and he’s grinning which is reprehensible because they’re fighting.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Louis wails.

Harry kisses him. Louis kisses him back, because it’s his fucking soulmate, even if Harry’s leaving and it’s going to tear him into tiny little pieces along the faultline of his mark. It’s not a shy kiss. It’s possessive and entangling and it makes Louis sigh. He means to keep it hard and harsh and maybe hurt Harry, but instead he goes all mopey into it, helpless mouth, jaw melting under the rub of Harry’s faint and irregular stubble.

He's also god-damn-fucking crying still, horrible hiccuping tears right into Harry's face, smearing between them.

“Don't cry, I'm here, London, I’ve got you,” Harry says.

“I'm not crying about you, it's just stress, I'm thinking about Wagner,” Louis hiccups. Harry wipes his face again. Louis can't even try to push away this time, he feels so weak all over, but he tries to look disgusted.

“Ok, sure, I'll cancel every ring cycle production for you,” Harry says. He kisses Louis’ forehead and _how dare he._

“I’m never leaving, you uncommunicative idiot,” Harry says, pulling away only far enough to rest his forehead against Louis’, slouching down to reach his height, and looking a jumble of happy and tired.

“What?” Louis says.

“I got a two bedroom in New York just in case I managed to convince you to come with us and write from there for a while, _and_ I’ve got one here, and it’s a half day flight, Louis, and the tour’s like, only a few more months. Or I’ll call you every day, if I can’t convince you to come with. We’ll figure it out. I honestly feel like you’re not understanding that your soulmate is a rockstar and can make these things happen. I want to make these things happen, for you. I don't want to leave you, pretty much ever.”  

“Oh,” Louis says, gripping Harry’s arms. “I mean, you could want to find somebody easier, a better soulmate, it would make sense,” he says. He’s the one holding on tight, now, so tight he might be making fingermark bruises in Harry’s tattoos. 

“Louis, what the fuck, you're my favorite person to talk to and I haven't even heard half your opinions,” Harry says, patiently. 

“Plus I do think you're hot, not a lot of that in your life I'm sure. Very rare,” Louis says. Harry gently pulls Louis’ gripping fingers away and he holds them tight in his big hands, holds Louis against the wall, kisses the side of his neck. It’s a lot, long and lingering and messy, all the pent-up energy that Louis is only just beginning to realize Harry holds.

“I want this and I want you but I don't want to go live in your rockstar palace, quit my job, whatever, go to the red carpet. I hate red carpets. I hate cameras,” Louis says.

“I don't want a single fucking one of those things,” Harry says. He's worked a lovebite into Louis’ neck that's going to be a deep red-blue bruise and Niall will definitely notice. Louis has got his head arched up to the ceiling. It’s all thick drumbeats and lush melodies, it’s a blur of how much he wants Harry and how much it hurt, the idea that Harry might not want him.

“Niall called me,” Harry says, taking a break from reducing Louis to a shivering puddle of incompetence to glare at him. “How could you not tell me how much shit the publicity caused you? How could you not tell me, what a hard time it was, the online stuff? You're terrible. You know what I have?”

“What?” Louis asks, squeezing Harry's hips too hard.

“Money,” Harry says bluntly. “Money is what makes that shit go away. Money and also telling your fucking soulmate. I can't believe you thought I might want you to change your life. You love this flat. I travel half the year. We both want independence. Let's get better at talking about us,” Harry says, licking Louis’ neck at the end of the speech. Louis bares all his teeth. He’s tear-soaked and still a little shaky, but there’s something delicious about it, about letting himself dissolve.

“You have bad ideas,” Louis says. It's perfect, is the maddening thing. What Harry wants is what he wants, apparently, and Louis falling apart every time Harry touches him only seems to encourage him.

“I have great ideas,” Harry says. “My flat is nearly the same size as this one, by the way. I want you to come over, but not to move in with someone you don't even know yet. Give us time. Come over and we’ll play music and I’ll kiss you on every surface. It's not about having you. I want to _give_ you things.”

“Ok, ok,” Louis says, or gasps, Harry’s touch like a brand, the sliding force of their hips together no longer something they can pretend they’re ignoring-- “Ok, sometimes you have great ideas.”

Harry rolls his eyes hard but he also has a hand on Louis’ ass that feels like it's almost trembling so Louis is going to count that as some kind of upperhand. There are a lot of things about Louis’ body that exist in an unpredictable quantum state but his ass is already and will always be perfect.

“And yeah, actually, I do want to see the mark, want to see you, want to have you. But only if you want. And I think you do,” Harry says. Louis still has fucking tear tracks on his face, has obliterated himself into the least sexy object he can possibly imagine. But Harry’s got his long destructive fingers hooked into the soft waist of Louis’ joggers.

“Let's get better at talking _later,”_ Louis says, because he does want it, he really does.

Harry lets Louis up from the wall but he doesn’t let go, starts pushing him out toward the hall.

“Wait, wait,” Louis says. He ducks under Harry’s arm and puts the needle back on the vinyl. Sixties jazz fills the small library, lush and warm, human beats with human imperfections.

 

***

 

Louis is the flutter in Harry’s throat, he’s the breathless way that they can’t stop kissing, he’s the easy slide of cool sheets against hot skin. He gets Harry’s clothes off as quickly as Harry’s clothes always seem liable to come off, his long perfect body in Louis’ bed, burned into his mind forever.

“Can I,” Harry says, fingering at Louis’ joggers. Louis answers the questions by pulling them off, and he’s rewarded with the wide-eyed way that Harry looks at him, thumbing down the contours of his thighs like he’s too much to believe. Louis is hard against the thin fabric of his boxers, fattened up against the warm circling pressure of Harry’s hips as Harry rocks them back into the bed, kissing into the corners of Louis’ mouth and caressing down the backs of Louis’ thighs with his dexterous fingers.

Harry pushes Louis over onto his back and pushes up the hem of his shirt, just barely. He ignores Louis’ dick because he’s been put upon this earth to create chaos and madness, and starts to kiss along the edge showing from Louis’ stomach, the faint trace of a marker-heart still visible on the skin. Louis moans in the back of his throat, wants more, wants to feel drunk on the way that Harry tastes but can’t interrupt this either.

Harry has kissed up the skin of his stomach and reached his sternum, and isn’t going to try to take the shirt off, when Louis decides that he’s figured out the _more_ that he wants. He pushes Harry back onto his side and ignores Harry’s protest and starts to pull off his shirt.

“You don’t, don’t have to,” Harry says, but he looks like every piece of Louis that he sees is a gift, and Louis is starting to understand what Harry meant about _wanting to give things._

“No, I want it, I really want it,” Louis says. He pulls off the shirt, it’s his skin all open, and he’s shaking again, like he knew he would be.

“Louis, London, love,” Harry says. Louis is the sound of jazz from the library, he’s the patient hum of someone on the other end of a telephone line, he’s in this moment, and nothing is going to take it away from him.

“I’m ok,” he says, “It’s ok, I just need to get used to it.” He turns on his other side, and Harry puts a hand out, infinitely light, tracing the lines of his mark.

Louis doesn’t look at his back often. But he can picture the shape of it perfectly. It splashes across his shoulderblades, curves into the dip of his spine, stains the delicate soft skin around his side. It’s everywhere. It’s loud and unmissable. It defines the back of his body.

“It really is my handwriting,” Harry says. “I never quite saw it in the picture, but it really looks like my handwriting.”

His hand is still on Louis’ back. Louis is, maybe, trembling under it. He doesn’t even know why, happiness and sadness and a thousand things intertwined.

“You hate it,” Harry whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Louis shakes his head, tries to find his voice. It’s not like Harry actually wrote this on him, it’s not like Harry knew anything about him. It’s not like he’s responsible for the ferocity of this mark, ink-stain entrapment that Louis has never known his own body without.

“I don't hate it. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just not used to anyone seeing it,” he says.  

“You don't hate it, but you hide it,” Harry says. “Isn't that the same thing?”

“It's _not,”_ Louis snaps. He's ambushed by his own vehemence. It was better, clearer, easier to understand, when he had imagined they would only ever belong to him, the words, the songs.

“I'm sorry, you don't have to talk about it, but I really want to understand,” Harry says. He sounds shaky too, but he hasn't moved his hand and he hasn't moved closer, either. He's letting Louis decide where it goes, and that alone means so much that he could cry.

“It's just that it's me, it's always been me, not something I can change, not something I want to change, just, something that I just wanted to be private,” Louis says.

_good evening london I have some songs_

Harry hasn't moved his hand. He hasn't recoiled or been angry or…to be honest Louis doesn't really know _what_ the feeling is that constricts his heart, that sends a thousand needles just under the surface of his skin. Louis wants his touch so much, he's surprised he can even do anything when Harry's in the room besides slip under his arms, jam his body into the space of Harry's side. It's irrational and it's wild.

He doesn't know how to be a person who wants to be touched.

“It doesn’t matter,” Louis says, “Everyone’s seen it, anyway. The whole world. Every shitty musician who comes through London gets to have a laugh about it.” 

Harry pulls Louis flush against him, tucked in back to front, spooning him on the bed. Like this, Harry’s body covers the mark, hidden between them. He puts one big hand over the trail that curls around Louis’ right ribs, sharp black lines poking around to the front. _tonight._ Like this, Harry’s hand covers the last corner of the mark. It’s just Louis’ bare skin in the soft light of the bedroom, under the gentle notes of the music drifting down the hall.  

“They don't get to see you like this, though, do they,” Harry says, and it’s not a question. It's not accusatory or pitying or teasing. It's a world of gentleness. It's a reminder.

It sends white-hot heat through his body. Harry's possessive and sheltering and a whole lot of things Louis doesn't understand, and it's cracking his walls like eggshells.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Louis says. It’s a little choking, of which he’s not proud.

“When have I ever laughed at you,” Harry says. “When would I ever.”

Louis knows, for all that he’s spent so long denying it. He lets out a breath, under Harry’s hands, lets himself feel small and held together and vulnerable.

_to share with you tonight_

“I know I haven't been the way you're supposed to be when you meet your soulmate,” Louis says.

“There aren't any rules, London,” Harry says. Louis thought he hated the nickname but it's like a lifeline. They're still the people who bantered on the phone, that kind of thing could still be here even without the protective layers of clothes that Louis has relied on for so long.

“I just...I never wanted to be the pianola, you know,” Louis chokes. It’s an insane thing to say. But Harry still gets it, because….because fate and soulmates and all that incredible bullshit, Louis supposes.

“You're not, you never could be, I don't want that,” Harry whispers. His thigh, pressed between them, is hinging Louis open, hot heat running down his back, curling into his pelvis. Louis lets out a noise, high and breathy.

“I don't want you to play out some predetermined punch card. I just want to get to know _you_ ,” Harry says. It’s utterly savage to intertwine this conversation with what he’s doing, biting down Louis’ neck, warm tongue licking, hips grinding into Louis’ ass, the hard ridge of his cock taking away every word from Louis’ brain.

Harry’s fingers slide into Louis’ hair, arrestingly tender. He tips Louis’ head back, exposing the line of his neck. Louis’ cock is throbbing, his ribs hurt, he feels shaky and he’s desperate and weak and he wants to be taken care of. 

“Hold me,” Louis says. It's been so long, and he's missed it.

“Of course,” Harry says. “It’s all I ever want to do.”

 

***

 

Harry fingers him open with their faces pressed close together, Louis’ thigh thrown over Harry's waist and Harry's arm slipped intimately between his legs.

“Are you ok?” Harry says. Louis is curled into Harry, trying to get deeper, hiding in him, and he’s letting out fierce, tight breaths that might be on the edge of sobs, but no one can see his face, so. 

“Keep telling me you’re ok,” Harry says, he sounds worried, he sounds tender, he’s wrapped entirely around Louis and his other hand is soothing down Louis’ back like he can’t stop himself, over the marks again and again.

“No, yeah, I’m so ok,” Louis says. He’s a mess, but it’s a good mess. He lifts his head away from the sheets long enough to smile at Harry, sideways.

“Please, please, hold me,” he says.

“I’ve got you, I’ll keep you together,” Harry says. He kisses Louis over and over, bruising and light and every possible kind of kiss. Of course, Harry wants every possible kind of kiss, wants to tear them out of Louis until there’s nothing left at all. Louis is dizzy with how much he wants it.

Louis presses into the soft skin of Harry’s neck, feels the thrum of his heartbeat. He jolts, his body still a body that wants things, the slide of Harry’s long beautiful fingers so good, so desperate. Harry drives him nearly to the edge before he pulls his fingers out and rolls on a condom, and Louis can’t even let go to let him do it, just holding onto his shoulders, around his waist, anywhere that he can. Harry kisses him around his smile, tender and patient and perfect.  

“I want you to know that I think everything about you makes sense,” Harry says, when he drives into Louis, because he’s an actual _drama queen._

“What the fuck - kind of a thing - to say is that? Right now?” Louis pants, incapable of getting it all out in one take, between the muscle it’s taking to keep driving his thighs up and into Harry’s body, between trying to melt into him. He’s wrapped his legs around Harry and Harry’s braced on his arms with all of his stupid movie-trained strength, and the slide of Harry’s cock is taking him to absolute pieces.

“I just mean, I think that’s part of the soulmate thing. You’re so great to listen to, at first I read your stuff because I wanted you to like me but now I just want to talk music with you all the time. What you like makes sense and what you don’t like makes sense, to me.”

Harry’s skittering his hand across the widest, most marked part of Louis’ back. Louis is not, is _not_ going to cry again. He bites his own lower lip hard to make sure he doesn’t. Harry is doing tremendously effective things in places that Louis never even _imagined_ he wanted touched but now he _needs it_ like he needs water, like he needs a place to put all of his guilty sordid feelings about musical theatre and experimental house music. He never knew he needed someone to lick dangerously close to his armpit and over his nipples, to tuck his hair behind his ears and all the while kiss him.

“There’s not a thing that doesn’t make sense, in what you want and what you don’t want,” Harry says. “There's not a thing about you that I don't like, not a thing I want to change. God, I want you.”

Louis manages to laugh because Harry is deep inside him, taking every piece of him with the hot hard line of his cock, Louis flailing loose underneath him, his body a body that can’t control itself anymore. Only Harry Styles could be sunk so deep and clawing at your thighs and ass and biting into your mouth and still sound needy for _more._  

“You'll have to want me as many separate times as I’ve had to listen to your songs, fair’s fair,” Louis whispers in his ear.

“You’re beautiful, your whole body is beautiful, your mark is beautiful, your thoughts are the most beautiful,” Harry whispers back. It's sappy and ridiculous and unashamed. Louis has to screw his eyes shut because it’s burning him up, the tight wind of orgasm rolling through his pelvis.

It turns out it’s good, being cracked open. It turns out it's good, someone finally getting the words right.

 

***

 

Harry plays another show in London, for Louis and nobody else at all. He plays it in Louis’ living room, on the floor with his long legs out in front of him and a guitar in his lap. 

Louis listens to him play, new draft songs that Harry makes him promise not to judge, but Louis thinks this is unnecessary given the width of the sappy smiles he’s giving Harry. Still, he can’t be blamed.

And there's one just for him, there's one _about_ him. Louis makes him play it three times until Harry starts complaining.

“Be a professional,” Louis says.

“Not with this one,” Harry says. If there are a few tears in his eyes even three times around, well, Harry's good at what he does. “Not gonna play this one for anybody else. Louis, will you,” Harry starts, always so slow to get the words out.

“I’m _already_ your soulmate, you don’t have to ask,” Louis says. It’s the first time he’d admitted it out loud, he thinks, and it’s ok. It only hurts a little. Like music, it's certain to get better with practice.

“I was under the impression you were a professional listener,” Harry says. Louis feels a bubble of joy in his chest because this back and forth they have, he _loves_ this.

“So maybe shut up for just one minute? Will you date me?” Harry asks, sweetly.

“Are you telling me we weren’t already,” Louis says, mostly so he doesn't cry again. “Are you telling me I went to all those ridiculous concerts and those didn’t even _count,”_

“You love them,” Harry says. “Will you?”

“Yes,” Louis says, and none of it worked because he's crying anyway. He chose Harry a long time ago, or Harry was chosen for him, but either way the future is wide open.

 

***

 

“Are you writing your retraction about the Harry Styles album?” Harry asks. Harry Styles, Actual Soulmate, is wearing Louis’ pajama bottoms with corgis on them and he’s flipping idly through a Rossini score on the living room floor, pulling all of Louis’ scores out of order.

“I’m writing an expose about how indolent he is at home, the disaffected rocker, coming into innocent people’s houses and messing up all their shelves,” Louis says.

Harry’s wandering foot is dangerously near the shelf, swinging in space. It’s like the tick of a metronome. Louis watches his toes catch on the edge of a score, and tumble it out onto the floor.

“I knew you’d like my tour,” Harry says, “Are you telling them how much you like my tour? I want to hear it. I want to hear your words.”

“Wow, leave me alone, be patient. It’s a first draft,” Louis says.

“Never gonna leave you alone, never gonna be patient, need you all the time,” Harry says.

“It’s rough,” Louis says.

“So you'll do it over and over again, until it’s perfect,” Harry says. Louis throws a paper ball at him, but he nods. Harry has already made him tea. Harry is already perfect. 

“Just the first two lines,” Harry says. He’s a perfect monster. Louis gets out of his chair and walks across the floor and sits on his legs.

Harry grins, turns his head to the side and puts his cheek on the carpet and looks like he knows he owns the world. Louis bats him on the head because he can, and rests one hand on the long clean empty stretch of Harry's back.

He reads.

_The opening notes of a song are not always a prediction for what follows. Our ends are not, in every case, constrained by our beginnings._

**Author's Note:**

> In many places Soulmate!Louis unabashedly paraphrases Alex Ross. He’s a music critic MacArthur fellow Pulitzer finalist wordsmith and he really truly did describe audience silence as “mass anal retention.” All clumsiness in paraphrased opinions is mine, obviously, not his. I highly recommend his book, “The Rest is Noise.” 
> 
> Barring my mistakes the specific pieces and productions referenced are all real; I briefly and vaguely co-opt the history of early American labor rights in folk music to include soulmarks, but you’d have to read Louis’ MFA to learn about it. I owe thoughts on pianolas, the early player piano hugely popular in the early 1900s, to Steven Johnson’s “Wonderland.” Edison didn’t actually stray from engineering and his other sound work to make a piano, that I know of, but the other two versions are real, and the fake Singer-Edison pianola is a bit of a joke at Tesla’s Edison-lightbulb generator display from 1898 and the Singer player piano a few years earlier that used alternating currents on the strings. Steinway still makes a player piano called the Spirio, and it’s disturbingly good. Obviously none of these things play soulmarks but wouldn’t it be cool if they did.


End file.
